THE OIL LAMP

The oil lamp burns on my desk, just next to the piano. Its flickering yellow flame dances in the glass, and casts long, moving shadows across the walls. It’s an old heirloom I think; I certainly like to imagine my ancestors using it aboard their pirate ships, on distant seas, long ago. (Though, to be honest, a car boot sale was more likely its original route into our family.)

This is something of a tradition for me now, lighting the family oil lamp on New Year’s Eve. Last year I sat here, watching it quietly, as the fireworks burst outside the window. This year, although later than midnight this time, I’ve lit it once again, as a symbol of somehow burning away the old and yet hoping for the new.

There are still a few fireworks around. An orange star just ballooned over the houses opposite and then faded gracefully back into the darkness. I counted. One. Two. Three. Boom. So quickly the spectacular becomes the normal.

Perhaps that depends on where you look for your spectaculars though.

Earlier, in Gareth and Rachel’s garden, when the night sky had turned wild with the fire and sulphur of a thousand garden firework displays, I had made my own spectacular start to 2019.

I had decided to take my gloves off so I could pull my party popper when the time came. Gloves, and a plastic cup of a quarter inch of prosecco in one hand, party popper with dangling string in the other, I watched Rich light the rocket at the end of the garden as the great countdown began.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!” shouted everybody together excitedly. The rocket fizzed into life. “Seven! Six! Five!”

I suddenly realised I wouldn’t be able to hold the cup and pull the party popper, so I quickly switched the cup to my teeth, gripping the plastic rim in my bite while I used a hand to wrap the index finger of of my left around the string, dangling from the popper I gripped in the right. Gloves, string, popper, cup. Sorted.

“Four,”

I’m ready.

“Three.”

The sparks burned orange as the rocket fired up like a NASA launch.

“Two.”

“One...”

“Happy New Year!” the cheer ascended.

Rich had timed it perfectly. The rocket screamed into the air as we whooped and hollered, and our eyes all as one, followed it upwards on its whistling journey. Then, just as magnificently, it suddenly exploded into a constellation of thousands of sparks of blue, white, and yellow, combining and fading in a glorious one-second symphony of visual wonder, while our party poppers popped.

I think those were the colours. I was a bit distracted because in tipping my head back to watch it, I had just accidentally poured a quarter of an inch of sparkling prosecco over my face.

-

I’ll be honest: I don’t yet know what to make of this year coming (especially if that was what had to happen first). I’ll probably revisit the very weird feeling I get about 2019, but until anything ominous or brilliant happens, I can at least be hopeful!

That’s what this oil lamp thing is really about after all - the flame is different every time you look at it, and yet just the same as always it was. Hope remains. The lamp still burns brightly in this quiet little flat, just like my own hopes, my dreams, and my much-longed-for-things do in me, still fuelled by the oil of what was promised, and the faith that sparks it into flame. There still be oil in this ol’ lamp of ours, whether it once swung above the briny sea or no’, I tells thee. And I must remember to keep it that way.