C. and I rang in the new year at the top of Route 93, where the Black Mountains unfold and reveal the sudden lights of Vegas in the valley below. Fireworks bloomed over The Strip, and we killed the lights and joined the other cars on the shoulder to watch the show. Parked along a dark highway, watching colorful explosions over the city: it looked like a hallucination. But after twenty years of fantasizing, we’ve truly and finally made it to the desert, and I felt a stillness I hadn’t known in a while. Two minutes past midnight, a steady rain began to fall, and we drove home on an empty parkway, feeling futuristic while fireworks burst alongside our car.

Seven hours later, I woke up with aggressive sunlight in my face. The sky was an overwhelming blue, a blank new year stretched before me, and the night before felt like a scene from a half-remembered film. My resolutions are the same as usual, although slightly more attuned: write more (always start with paper + pen) and read more (in a chair rather than bed) and also worry less, run farther, be more pleasant, and make some music again.