a new year’s eve menu
Caio’s pão de quiejo
Sami Tamimi’s Palestinian warm hummus
with Stacy’s Pita Chips
My take on a beet & orange salad
with herbed goat cheese
Reem Kassis’s kafta and tomato bake
with potatoes & beyond beef
My mom’s festive rice
with fried slivered almonds & raisins
Olivia’s homemade assorted Christmas cookies
From Roy’s Chocolate Pannetone
Crescent Ridge Eggnog
Rkatsiteli, Orgo, Kakheti, Georgia, 2020 - Amber wine
Riesling, “Vin de Soda”, Scheuermann, Rheinhessen-Pfalz, Germany, NV - White bubbly
If I can sum up this year in one word, for me, it was all about disruption. I was looking for a year like no other, a year in which I’d purposefully change my life, both of which were goals that naturally led to an unaccounted for amount of disruptive situations in 2023. These disruptions forced me to come face to face with the worst parts of myself: the obstinate, controlling, sometimes anxious mess that I wish no one knew I can be.
The disruption meant that 2023 was a year of letting go — of my routines, my stability, my comforts, and my fears, my defense mechanisms, my obsessive materialism. Outside of myself, this year was about a loss of innocence in the way the world works. There are, as it turns out, no guardrails against genocide in the modern age. I’ve lost the last remaining shreds of trust that the western world is the bastion of freedom and human rights. I have complicated feelings about joy and celebration right now but I do want to say that there is value in spending time with people you love and doing things that energize you and give you hope for the future.
All this disruption of normal routine created moments for growth, and there hasn’t been a year in my “adult” life where I’ve grown so deeply: I’ve found my voice and understand better what I want to write about. I am more knowledgeable and more deeply connected with my personal politics and braver, a lot less afraid to express myself.
I started the year at the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere (a first for me!) in my boyfriend’s homeland of Brazil, pulling an all-nighter literally for the first time in my life to witness the sunrise on January first. In March I learned how to drive, got my license, and quit a dead-end corporate job. In April and May I travelled alone for seven weeks through Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto), Thailand (Bangkok), Cambodia (Siem Reap, Pnomh Penh), Indonesia (Ubud in Bali, Kuta in Lombok Island), and Australia (Melbourne, Sydney). In June I went to Armenia to see my family. In July I pushed myself to face a dozen fears in Mexico (Mexico City, Tulum). In August I tried to kickstart a writing career (found out it takes longer than three months to build one) and spent a perfect 28 hours in Provincetown. In September I got fired for the first time (slay). In October I found a job in hospitality that I’m genuinely loving while I take classes in preparation for a career change in 2024. In November I did an outdoor raku pottery workshop with a friend. In December I found my limit for how many hours a week I can handle, between my job and classwork, before I completely burn out (65 sad hours).
In this one year I crammed in all the experiences I might have encountered more slowly had the pandemic never taken place. I feel like I’ve mentally aged seven years in the span of one.
In 2024, I want to bring with me the seismic energy shift I experienced in 2023. I want to bring with me humility and openness to learn, the same fervour for personal growth, and the hope that the future can hold more.
Resolutions, I know, are a contentious topic, but I want to reframe them. I set intentions for myself at the beginning of every year and check in with them on my birthday (May 24) to see if I’m on course with the growth I hoped to gain in a year. But this isn’t so much about self optimization as it is an exercise in clarity. My New Year’s intentions help me differentiate between what i want to accomplish versus what i think i should accomplish.
By February, I have a better idea of what to focus on throughout the year by looking at what I wrote down in January. There’s inevitably intentions that I find myself unable — or unwilling — to make time for while others are easier to pursue. I let go of the intentions that no longer interest me and continue working on the ones I’m more enthusiastic towards.
It’s not that I “failed” at going to the gym or learning how to code. It’s that I’ve already subconsciously decided that neither of those goals actually matter enough to me at this point in my life for me to make time for them, but I needed to see that in writing to consciously believe it.
The ones that do matter are the intentions I’ve turned into habits: the daily walks in the sun, the yoga class with an instructor that greets me like an old friend, blocking out time in my calendar to write, learning how to light and shoot and edit videos in my free time. In this way, the purpose of setting goals is not in accomplishing them, but in highlighting what is important to me in the first place.
With that, here’s an
abridged list of intentions for 2024:
become a film person
cultivate the romance and sensuality of a film person
send out more pitches, get more work published
continue trusting my gut instinct for the scary decisions
read a book in every language i speak (arabic, armenian, french, spanish)
set aside time to rest, and then actually rest — no beating myself up for what i could be “getting done” instead
get back into the habit of reading daily
if i am online, be online more authentically. no more stress about polish and “brand”
find a better balance. avoid following an obvious path towards burn out
i’m planning to experiment a lot more with essays in the new year — not so much recipes, but more writing about food and the restaurant industry and travel and ~culture~ . i hope you stick around. as always,
Very inspiring to read this! I am so impressed! I just downloaded Duo Lingo and started relearning French! I also started back on yoga which makes me feel so much better. You have done so much Lala! I admire and envy you your passion and energy!