Words & Pictures No. 5 - A New Year

The image of the baby New Year and the elderly Old Year is a weird one. Anthropomorphising a concept like time just seems a little strange, but if you think about it the metaphor does hold up (at least in my hemisphere.

So, a year has a 12 month life-cycle. That first month is its infancy, so you can't really expect much from it, and January is kind of like that. The first half of it is largely just a holiday hangover, after all. And it's a cold month, and cold feels a little static, un-energetic; nothing's happening. February is the toddler month and the month where baby New Year learns to show affection (i.e. Valentine's Day). March and April would be adolescence and the teenage years respectively. As rainy as April is reputed to be, that would tend to fit with the idea of the moody teenager. Then comes May and New Year enters adulthood. June and July, summer months, would be New Year at it's prime.Not-so New Year starts to feel it's age starting in August and in September it notices that it's hair (i.e. foliage) is starting to change color and/or fall out. October the year sees its end approaching and begins to contemplate mortality (with Halloween). As the year winds down in November it is time to reflect on its life with gratitude (Thanksgiving). Then comes December where the weather's colder and the days are getting sholder, and then finally the life of the year ends on December 31st.

Of course, when one year dies, a new one is born. So really, when you think about it, a better metaphor for the change of the years would be the life of a phoenix rather than a human life span.