2017—The End

 What hobby-horses will be riding next year? The first year of Trump reads like chapters out of Gibbons’ “The Décline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” But what will keep us in the saddle, who will hold the reins?First order: count our blessings.My biggest blessing is the birth of a grandson in 2017, an unanticipated arrival. Other blessings include getting through the year with health intact, finances not in total ruin. Starting this blog. Making a couple new friends and reviving some older friendships.Looking to a new year has never been easy for me. My future-focused telescope always seems to be looking through the wrong end. Not that things look like they will diminish (although I know some inevitably will). But for me the unexpected is usually tinged with a hint of terror.I had just toured the Roman ghetto a few days ago and was reminded of the terror that culminated on October 16, 1943 when 2,000 Jews were rounded up and deported to death camps, most never to return. This after pooling a huge ransom to forestall deportation only to be betrayed by those same Nazi ransomers. Terror still hangs around the stones in the ghetto square. Much like it must now abide the sites of ISIS-marauded towns and cities and the ruins in today's Syria.Part of facing a new year is always looking past, reviewing the previous year: 2016 was tumultuous both for political vicissitudes, environmental catastrophes, wars and their aftermath...the sturm and drang of all our lives.Standing in that Roman ghetto square, the Largo 16 Octobre, I looked at the ruins of the Portico d'Ottavia, which dominated that little piazza with its heavy arch and fraying pillars, still standing for over 2,00 years. That portico, like the implacable face of a Roman emperor,  witnessed the fate of those Jews, which could have been anyone's fate. That same cruel and inhumane fate has been revisited on fellow humans many many times both in eons past in the decades since 1943.Those who escaped faced the same refugee crisis that exists today, in devastatingly greater numbers.  Can we afford to resolve to help those millions? Can we afford not to? Will the new year bring a reconciliation with and a correction of our failing morality? If we can not banish hate can we at least contain in?.

Year's end really can get annoying as well as sad.

.Yet a new year somehow always exhales a breath of optimism. It’s like various yearly rites of spiritual cleansing and renewal that all religions celebrate. We drag ourselves out of our griefs. We resurrect and push on.We make new year resolutions.Head of the lists of such resolute promises are those pointed to ourselves: lose weight, exercise regularly, shed that angry temper, be kinder to loved ones, stay more closely in contact with distant relatives and nearby friends.Other resolutions, sometimes ignored, include improving those things that may affect ourselves: promises to routinely separate trash into categories of recyclables, walk the dog more often and for longer periods, tidy our room and keep it neat, remember not to waste water, spend less on dinners out, use public transportation rather than drive whenever possible, encourage friends and loved ones who smoke to quit, save printed paper to use the clean side for inessentials, review spare clothing for donation, rotate a car's tires at recommended intervals, keep innoculations updated....Write and update one's will. Appoint a health care proxy and complete a health care directive.Year's end really can get annoying as well as sad.And regrets tend to creep in. Remorse may follow.The anticipation of a new year may suddenly shift into the high gear of nearly maniacal longing. Winning the lottery suddenly seems possible, almost at hand. Getting buffed becomes a realistic goal, momentarily. Hair transplants and plastic surgery could make all the difference if one believes and wishes hard enough. Wiping away sins and loathsome habits would be easy, if only. America can be great again, and so can I.The end of this year, 2017, leaves us all gasping for so much to be better.2018, whither wilt thou go?