Today marks the beginning of a new year. At least for the portion of the population that pays attention to such things. Certainly for those creatures who walk on four legs, or primarily swim the meaning is nil. Neither do the communities that settle too far from stores that stock wall calendars and wrist watches. Inuits come to mind, and tribes on the tundra. Most likely those people have other means of measuring the passage of time. 

Even in the absence of apps, our bodies themselves testify the march of months. Looking as I have at photographs of our family at Christmas it is apparent that these earthly packages morph. Some are changes I can control, like the shade of my sweater, or hair length. Others shift without my bidding, like gray temples and a sagging chin. 

It is suggestive of the two axes on a graph. The horizontal one ticks relentlessly like a German made clock with no allowances made for those moments I ache to linger, and no mercy for the ones I beg to swiftly pass. The vertical axis, though, keeps track of the aspect of one's personhood that does not succumb to metronomes.