The corkboard has too many dozen holes in the place where I most need it to be whole; I'll have to toss the damned thing out someday. I know all this when I begin, of course, so I'm gentle pulling the pin. There's a reflexive urge to conserve, postpone replacement; I tend to maintain the order of what hangs over me as I work.

The calendar is posted at the corkboard's upper right - so it was in the beginning when first these things were hung, and why would one ever change a thing like that. I support the old year as its pin comes free - be kind, do no harm, carry it like a casket - and ease it to the desk beside its successor. It looks disoriented, laying flat and open, and it begins to curl upon itself reflexively.

I take up the one beside it, unwrap it, burst it open; prepare it with my hands to hang as its predecessor did. It resembles the one before in many ways, showing the same photographic theme. The colorations are seasonal and familiar, though not the same; the paper of it is younger and sturdier; the markings upon it fewer and more up to date. I bend the paper back and forth until it's ready to hang twice as tall as the way it was packed, examining it briefly, flipping through. I decide as this goes on that I like the way it marks its moons.

Having met my approval, up it goes - its upper right corner to the upper right of the corkboard, optimism making me place it first in the place I'd find ideal. I'm surprised when the pin finds purchase to hold it in that spot. This one's size and shape differ just enough, and the constellation of corkboard pits commemorating my many moons lie just far enough away. This new year of mine is supported perfectly in brand new territory of the same old place, and my fondness for this calendar grows anew.

I stand and inspect the work, looking at what's before me, at the orderly way it's arrayed at this one moment. Eleven more times, I think toward the calendar, corkboard, and pin - be this way one more time each month, as the pages inevitably turn. That's all I plan to ask of you - do your best.

I pick up the one I'd taken down, that's done all it could for me. Walking across the room, I leaf through the months just passed again. I touch a day or two with a fingertip as I recall them, and am amazed at how many of the ones I scan through mean to me nothing at all.

I wish I had all of them back, to spend again as well or better. As it is, I drop them in the trash.

Stepping back to my seat, I glance at the new year that hangs over me, verifying that it does not yet hang askew. So far, so good, I see.

All right then, once again - let's begin.