As the New Year creeps closer around the globe, setting off fireworks from timezone to timezone, moving as a Gulf Stream of cheer, as some of us move from one house to another carrying cookies and cameras, as the snow aimlessly meanders down, as the car fishtails down the icy driveway, and back up again, as some of us go to bed early and try not to count the last gasps of the year, as strangers crowd close to watch falling lights, as the last janitor sweeps the last bit of confetti tonnage from the streets of the city.

In this moment, turn off your televisions. Put down your smartphones and your iPads.

Listen.  Listen.

The old slips away almost noiselessly. 

image credit:

By Jason (Flickr: Sparkler Circle) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons