john “the mountain goats” darnielle’s 2021 new year’s eve twitter thread, for those who missed it
[Image Description: several screenshots of a Twitter thread by The Mountain Goats.
1: So I was washing potatoes last night when I got excited
It was just one of those moments. You know. I was getting dinner together and I looked at the ingredients coming together on the counter
And I thought to myself, and and said aloud. “Hell yes, I have three potatoes”
Living with me means having to develop a robust tolerance for hearing a guy occasionally cry out aloud: saying, for example, “Hell yes, I have three potatoes”
2: But over and above my everyday state of excitement about the ten trillion small things that ease the path a little – colors, shades, sounds, flavors, sensations, moods, fleeting thoughts, moments of transcendence when you’re very lucky –
I had one of those moments of gratitude to have food. And not just the food, but a counter to prep it on and a stove for cooking
But it wasn’t just the food and the kitchen and the comforts of home either
It was me standing at the stove of a house where I’m safe. Got here on my own two feet. Had a lot of help. Plenty of points where I wouldn’t have bet on the outcome. Now I have three potatoes, you know?
3: Here’s the thing
Some of you reading this are in houses where you’re not safe all the time, and I know it
Some of you are day-to-day with a thousand different troubles and on any given day you feel like you might buckle
Maybe you’ve felt like that a lot of times over the past couple years. A lot of people have. Some people felt that way who’d had some preparation, and some people have found themselves navigating scary, unfamiliar straits
4: But if you’re reading this right now you’ve managed to make it work. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it worked all that well, maybe you feel like you’re coasting across the goal line with no fuel at all left in the tank,
But here you are
Here you are.
Having found some way to nourish yourself through it.
Look at the calendar, look at the clock. You sustained yourself through this. Maybe you got sick, maybe it was real bad. Maybe some things got better and maybe they got worse. But give yourself the gift of a long look in the mirror
5: Look at the person hard, uncertain times, in days of sickness everywhere, will see another year
That’s the person who will do it again, and to that person, over and over, I say, loud enough for the neighbors to hear.
Hell yes, hell yes, hell yes, hell yes, hell yes
From all of us here at Mountain Goats Central a thank you for seeing us through 2021. It was so good to see you in the flesh again. Stay safe. Trust yourselves. We will see one another through to safer times
6: This year’s New Year’s Eve thread is dedicated to that one guy who’s mad about people wishing one another happy new year, may he never know why people actually do it
And may the rest of us collectively, defiantly, never forget it /thread
aster 26 he/him
