Friday Writings #108: Beginning

 

Happy New Year, dear Wordsmiths!  I hope you have all been having an excellent time as the old year ended and this new one began.

Looking at various things about the state of the world, I’m sure we are all dreaming of and praying for some serious new beginnings!

‘Beginning’ is a pretty obvious topic at this time, but perhaps it’s more complex than we think. I like these quotations, which suggest that beginnings are all bound up with endings and vice-versa:

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. – Seneca.

Everything must have a beginning … and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. – Mary Shelley.

The beginning is the promise of the end. – Henry Ward Beecher.

This idea of endings and beginnings being entwined clearly applies not only at the start of a new year, but also to many other things in life. 

What sort of endings and/or beginnings have you been experiencing?

For myself, and for some others here, there is the mighty effort of having completed a major writing project. And in some cases plunging into the next!

I’ve also had a year of friends dying. All those friendships had lasted decades. I remember their fine beginnings very well. And everything in between.

At 84, I guess I’m officially long-lived. I suppose I must expect that some people will go sooner – though one of the friends who left in 2023 was in her nineties, and I’m happy to say she LIVED until she died. Actually, when I think about it, that applies to all of them, whatever their age (including one who was not yet old). So perhaps neither the beginning nor the end matters as much as the middle?

And yet, beginning can be vital. 

My favourite quote from Tolkien, which Google reminds me Aragorn says in The Two Towers, is:

There are some things it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.

I'll give the last word to actor Jodie Whittaker, quoting one of her most famous characters, Doctor Who, on the subject of regeneration:

Everything ends, and that's always sad. But everything begins again, and that's always happy.

So, my friends, I look forward to your new beginnings in writing, and to our beginning this new year here together.

For your optional prompt this week, please let the idea of Beginning inspire you. You might write about that idea, or perhaps share a piece which in itself constitutes a beginning of some kind. Or of course you are free to choose some other topic altogether, to share with us this time.

Guidelines:   

You may share poetry or prose, old or new. 

Link us (below) to that post on your blog; one post per person, please.

If possible, do visit other participants and leave encouraging comments as applicable. 

You may talk to us in the comments section below, too.

Next week, our intrepid Magaly will invite us to write poetry or prose which includes the Oxford word of the year for 2023: rizz, an informal noun, defined as ‘style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner’.