I write to make sense of the past. And I teach as a way to engage with the future. It's an opportunity for conversations with different timelines. A consistent back and forth where I seek out spaces where things can overlap and a chance to explore the instances where they disconnect.

The rhythms of this framing sit well with me. And yet, I currently struggle with what happens in that space in between - the present moment. By this, I don't necessarily mean 'being present' - it's more complex than that. It's the feeling that our sense of being anchored to the past, the present, and the future has become somewhat upended. To borrow from the great Kurt Vonnegut - there is a sense that we have become 'unstuck in time.'

Tolstoy once wrote that “true life is lived when tiny changes occur.” 2021 was a year that seemed to hint at the potential for great change and yet, for me, it never seemed to fully deliver. One year on, and I feel that things have remained relatively static despite the time that has passed.

Maybe this is a naive way to view things and, perhaps, it's unwise to try and define our lives by what we think of as big changes. Instead, we might listen to Tolstoy and try and find true life through all the tiny changes that occur.

The big thing you'd miss this year is the craic. I used to live abroad and would try and explain the idea of ‘craic’ to some of the foreigners that I'd meet. "Having the craic is kind of like a social activity," I'd say. "It's about having a good time with friends." Yet, these descriptions never quite fully captured what I found so special about this word. This year, it has been the absence of craic that has helped me to realise what is so special about it, and this has given me something to work towards in the year ahead.

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