Dear Janus, Welcome, you old two-faced god of endings and beginnings, openings and closings, doorways and thresholds! Standing in your liminal space of transition, I look back over my shoulder at the Great Plague, at the Year of Fear, at holding my breath when I pass graveyards. Facing forward, I practice the yogic Breath of Fire, dream of restaurants with white tablecloths and mussels in white wine, imagine a punked-up haircut that I haven’t committed on myself. I can’t wait, Janus, for celebrations that include sparklers, chocolate lava cake, and confetti cannons. I long for sold-out movie theaters, SRO plays, for group hugs. I want someday to unmask my true face, unclench my jaw, unfold a paper map and follow it slowly across the country. But, Janus, you call on me to look back: to remember cruelty and tyranny; to acknowledge loss; to grieve for a world that will never come again. To hold multitudes in our minds—the past and the future—as we stand in the present poised to begin again. Always beginning again. XOXO Nikki
