This morning, the first morning after the first morning of 2010, I made my tea as I usually do. The cats wrestled and chased each other around my feet while I quietly went about my routine. I was thinking about the spectacle of the last couple nights; the hyperbole of the holiday and how, after all the excitement, I am still here unchanged and unaffected. It was ten years ago when Y2K loomed over us. The doomsday clock tensed and everyone held their breath, only to exhale on the other side as they; we, always do annually. I was at home with my sons. I have a picture of that very moment that midnight arrived. My youngest had fallen asleep just ten minutes before, despite my earnest efforts to arouse him to the occasion and my older son was watching the countdown on television, his eyes bright and expectant for the glorious transit of millenniums. That is all I have of that moment. The lights never went out, the fabric of the universe remained intact. On the CBC, the Tragically Hip were playing, and instead of stopping the show and breaking into a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, they scored the moment by launching seamlessly into “Save The Planet”. It was business as usual. I remember as it was playing, before phonecalls from relatives to unite us in the occasion, I went outside on the front porch and noted the dark silence of the night. There, was no fanfare at all, just the whisper of the highway nearby. Everything was just as it had always been. I went back inside to sit with my boys and watch the celebrations coming in from around the world, plotting how soon I can get my older son to agree to go to bed.
A year later; January the 1st, 2001, I woke in the morning and puttered about the kitchen just as I had done just now. I noticed the rosiness of the clouds, the rising sun fighting through the horizontal atmosphere, atomized into a refracted red. Gradually, the sun rose and was shining brightly over my neighbour's roof and through naked tree branches into the kitchen window, into my eyes. I hid behind the open cupboard door to shield my eyes from the brightness. I then realized that I was witnessing the true dawning of the new millennium. It was January the first, 2001, the real beginning of the year, the century and the millennium. In our haste, the world could not wait to celebrate and did so prematurely, a year too early and nearly everyone was missing this, this new sunrise. I looked at the light as long as I could, but had to look away. I realized that this brief allowance of attention was all I could give the moment. Then the moment was gone. I fixed myself a coffee, checked the pancakes on the grill and went to see what the boys were watching on tv.
Welcome to the New Millennium.
Welcome, New Millennium.
You’re Welcome.
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