(FREE) January Letter from the Editor
by Kelsey Wagner
The following Letter from the Editor appeared in the print issue of Ponca City Monthly magazine. Get full access to all online articles, videos and content by becoming a paid subscriber. We offer free and paid subscription plans. Find rack locations to pick up your free print copy here, or subscribe here to get online access plus exclusive content.
I hope you are reading this note full to the brim with a week’s worth of hugs, joy, laughter, and happy times with friends and family. The end of December and the beginning of January are an important time - they mark the end and beginning of a year in your life.
I’ve been blessed in my life with a strikingly good memory. It’s not photographic, but I am able to remember moments in my life so vividly that I can take myself back to where I was in the memory. I can remember the smells, the sounds and I can remember what I was wearing and who I was with. Having such an active recall of my memories has helped make me a better storyteller and writer. I think one reason I’m able to do this is because of my habit to sit and “soak in moments.” To stop what I’m doing and take in everything around me in, using all my senses. It’s something I’ve done since I was a very young child, and to this day, I can recall vivid memories throughout my entire life just by simply closing my eyes.
One of the very first New Year’s Eve celebrations I can remember was at my childhood home. I was with my mom, dad, and older sister, and I must have been somewhere around the age of four. My mom had small chairs for us to sit in, and we were running around playing. My mom had made special snack foods and mixed us up a fancy punch. I remember her telling us it was a new year and that we were going to watch a ball drop, which meant we were allowed to stay up past our 8:30 pm bedtime. I remember sitting in our little chairs, drinking tasty punch and thinking how fun this New Year’s holiday was if it meant snacks, punch, and staying up past my bedtime. I don’t remember watching a ball drop that year, and I can only assume it’s because I fell asleep early, but the idea of celebrating the New Year was permanently imprinted on my memory.
I remember being so excited for another New Year to come around. As a child, you don’t do much planning ahead; you just take the days as they come. I had no concept of time other than my mom said it happens once every year. I remember when the next New Year celebration came around, thinking to myself that it took an ABSOLUTE ETERNITY for a year to pass. A year as a child might as well have been a lifetime. If you consider the proportion a year is to a young life, it makes sense. And as such, with each passing year, the proportion of the year compared to our life gets ever so slightly smaller. Like peeling back the layers of an onion only in reverse.
Time is relative like that. It ebbs and flows based on our understanding and experience with it. But even though I know the years pass by more quickly than they used to, I’m grateful that as I get older, I have learned to stretch out my days and soak in all the moments I can. I’ve always been someone who enjoys “stopping to smell the roses,” and the older I get, the more roses I find myself stopping for.
My father always said, “The days are long, but the years are short.” As we all wrap up 2023 and look forward to this New Year, I hope you find new and interesting ways to stretch your days out. I hope you take time to stop and smell the roses and to make fancy punch. To be sure to soak in all the moments around you using all your senses because our memories are something we can cherish and treasure for the rest of our lives.
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