This post has one foot in last night and one in this morning, straddling the 2011/2012 divide. Which is, of course, silly, because I’m writing it in 2012, but the conceit struck me so I’m sticking with it. Happy new year, y’all!

Last night we went to the Concert for Peace at St John the Divine. The primary reason I wanted to go was that Judy Collins was on the program, and I’ve loved her beautiful voice since I first encountered it back in 1978. She’s had quite a difficult life, losing her son to drug addiction and suicide, and anyone whose child commits suicide awes me with their strength and courage to go on. When we walked the block and a half to the cathedral, I was struck anew by how dazzling it is that I live so close to such a place; imagine if I lived a block away from Notre Dame de Paris, or the stunning cathedral at Chartres. If I lived so close, and could walk over there on a whim….but I do live so close to a similarly-magnificent place, even if it doesn’t have the same kind of history.

It was beautifully decorated, and packed with people. The concert started at 7 and we left our apartment at 6:30 for the 5-minute walk; by the time we arrived, the only empty seats were in the very back rows. I took the shot above relatively close to the front, in the paid section — $60/ticket. We were there for the free seats, and from where we sat in the very back, we couldn’t see anything at all but there were giant speakers placed in our back section so we’d be able to hear. And THEN this woman standing in the aisle next to us asked if we’d like to take two extra ticketed seats she had, because her friends didn’t show up. Why yes please, we’d love to do that. So we sat in the 5th row from the performers. Unbelievable. Unfortunately, our seats were in the middle of the row, so if we wanted to leave we really couldn’t — and I’d have wanted to leave. Ah well.

After opening remarks by the Dean of the Cathedral, Harry Smith spoke briefly, and then introduced Judy Collins. She talked for a bit, sang a bit of a song she’d written after attending Duke Ellington’s funeral there at the cathedral, and then launched into an a capella version of Both Sides Now. She sounded absolutely amazing, but she started wandering around with the lyrics; in the second stanza, she was just pulling lines randomly from different stanzas and I saw this fleeting expression on her face where she realized she was off, but she plowed forward anyway. That stanza didn’t make sense and it didn’t rhyme, but it didn’t matter. She sang the rest perfectly, and I cried, a lot. Her sweet quavery voice, lifting and breaking so high, reaching the notes….the lyrics themselves….it was just lovely.

The rest of the long performance wasn’t my cup of tea — at all, actually, I wished we could’ve left — but it ended with everyone in the giant cathedral lighting the candles we’d been given with our seats, and singing together, in the dark, This Little Light of Mine. It might sound corny to you, but if you’ve never sung together with strangers in the dark, I can assure you that it’s moving and memorable. I heard the voices of people standing around me, and I saw the hundreds of candles filling the space with their tiny lights, and cried again, as we walked out the door into the night.

We came home and had a beautiful meal my husband made, tandoori chicken, and chicken with green curry. Broccoli in curry and ginger. Rice. It was mouthwatering, mouth-stinging, and oh-so-good. Just before midnight we walked down to Riverside Drive, which is always surprisingly empty at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and stood in the middle of the street and kissed each other. Here’s to a new and improved year, with hope for something especially good to happen to my husband.

If you’re from the south, I know you’re eating something with blackeyed peas today, for good luck. I made sure that the first thing I put in my mouth this morning was sweet, so sweet things would come out of my mouth this year. And I’ve paid attention to what I’ve been doing today, because whatever you do on New Year’s Day is what you’ll do a lot of in the coming year. So I cooked and knitted:

I imagine we’ll take a walk on this beautiful sunny day — it’s 51 degrees, very unwinter-like! I hope the first day of your new year is as happy and lovely as mine, filled with great food and enjoyable activities, and someone to love. What else do you need.