new year's resolution

some sad songs have happy endings

today—the second day of the year—marks what would have been my 18th wedding anniversary.

last year, i approached the anniversary date—after nearly a year of separation—with trepidation, not really knowing what to feel. i was a soup of emotions, only beginning to inhabit new words: separation, ex-husband, co-parent.

but today, i realised that the date represents a new milestone, a new portal into a new way of being. a new new year’s “resolution,” if you will. the resolving of discord into a happy ending, a major cadence to a minor song, a tierce de picardi of sorts.

weddings celebrate. anniversaries commemorate. that word, commemorate, carries depth. it is an archive of memory—honouring a fleeting moment in time, with the sacredness it deserves. the memory will live forever, even if the joy of the moment dissipates.

our wedding was a indeed a joyful, wonderful celebration in a rustic lodge in south africa, complete with all the colour of wedding drama: i fainted (too much adrenaline, perhaps? or was it the shot i downed for courage on an empty stomach, the highveld summer?) and was caught, mid-swoon, elegantly by my best friend, who didn’t let my head touch ground. my young cousin stood up for me, bristling at the priest’s mispronunciations of my name; his tone-deaf sermon. my sister-in-law insisted, with her signature cheeky affection, that the more sexist indian rituals of genuflection needed to be reciprocated. my family made sacrifices to travel far to witness our vows. james’ family welcomed me with warmth and ritual, assuring me of their support—which has remained unwavering even in this new phase. you could touch and taste the love that surrounded us.

when two people get married, we call upon witnesses to celebrate and consecrate vows. when two people get divorced, we ought to lean on this community—to understand; to transmute this witnessing into a new form of support.

my wedding, 2nd january 2008

before we married, james and i were innocents abroad, having only moved to south africa just months before. with big dreams and little else, believing in the rainbow nation’s promise of a post-racial nation. years later, we laughed about how naive our assumptions were. at the wedding, we chuckled at how frivolous and ill-timed our buying of vintage movie posters was, laughing even now about the cheap wine we did not know better than to toast with. there was a genuine warmth and camaraderie between us—one that remains true to this day, even if our marriage may have ended.

there was truth, even if there wasn’t permanence.

aren’t we are strange?

we want to believe in fake happy endings and impossible permanence.

over truth, beauty, and the power of new beginnings.

i have, since my separation, attended weddings, commemorated others’ anniversaries, celebrated the beginning of new love and new chapters—with enthusiasm and a full heart. this year, my parents would have celebrated 53 anniversaries. in all cultures, this is seen as achievement. but—the greatest achievement this year, was receiving my mother’s acknowledgement—after witnessing the intentionality of our co-parenting, and the freedom and lightness that this brings—that the ending of a marriage, too, can be the right decision.

my parents' wedding in may, 1973; madurai tamilnadu

anahid nersessian, in her eloquent take on the ending of a marriage, says:

“divorce is a writer’s business.

you can paint a wedding but not a divorce.”

indeed, it is a writer’s business.

this past year, i started my substack out of this desire to write my way through the mixed emotions of ending a 23-year-old chapter in my life.

i wrote my way through the heartache and bitterness, but also working through the guilt of great relief, waking into the lightness of clarity. describing tentative steps off the ledge, into possible flight, into new ways of becoming.

i recently conducted a music workshop for aspiring songwriters in bangalore, and i mentioned that i have a phd in sad songs. it’s because i wrote my way out of grief when my loved ones passed on in 2021, releasing my first EP. and i am writing my way out of this new fuguestate as well. my upcoming album, witness (which will release this year) is an amalgamation of the swirl of chaotic emotions that this period has unleashed. but in all my sad songs, old and new, there is a strand of hope.

my song grace, which will be done afresh in my new album, starts in a minor:

talk of salvation, i run to your embrace
need liberation
freedom from this place, i need grace
i need your grace, ‘cuz i am human

i need your…

…grace (a major, my beloved tierce de picardi)

tell me, in my new album: tells of loneliness. but resolves in self-empowerment.
i met a man is a ballad of heartbreak and self-doubt, but resolves in a reframed story of power.
forget me insists that it is impossible to forget what someone has meant to you; it would be a mockery of love to even try.

my songs have been my salve. you have to grasp hurt with both hands—touch the wound that aches you—in order to become light. there is no running away from the wound. but the only way out of a broken chord is through resolution into a reframed narrative. and resolution will come. and so, as i thought of writing this piece today, i researched the meaning of the word resolution.

resolution /ˌrɛzəˈluːʃn/: resolution can mean a decision, a determination, a solving of a challenge or a problem.

but for me, it is musical: the shift from dissonance into harmony.

as a child learning music theory, i loved all sorts of cadences and musical resolutions—i was particularly fascinated by that baroque musical contraption, the tierce de picardi, that surprising, often haunting end to a minor song, with a major key (for a beautiful example of this, listen to this rendition of bach’s prelude and fugue in c minor, bwv 847, tierce de picardi at 1:18 for the prelude, 2:57 for the fugue).

and, like a minor chord resolving unexpectedly into major, this year, despite the trials of the past years, i find myself surprised by the first hints of hope, of unexpected strength. of power and wings, the kind i could not have imagined—had it not been for the pits of despair.

for, despite my mourning of the ending of my marriage, i am proud of the way we are ending this chapter.

with kindness, graciousness, and real love, that has shapeshifted into something new. we can draw on new forms of community and arrangement. new words that signify the depth of love that existed. love exists, it just wears a different coat. for we have chosen the gift, not the wound, a conscious resolution of a sad song into a song of hope. instead of the traditional duet, or duelling counterpoint, we have found new songs, new words. we have modulated our resentment, and petty squabbles, into a new key: we now focus our energies towards refined expectations for how to become intentional co-parents, instead of resentful parents. we acknowledge the great sweep of the hinge that connects us both, by honouring each others’ families.

and while we cannot paint a divorce, we can paint a picture of a new kind of love and respect that exists between each others’ extended families. this weaves a greater story in the tapestry of life than that of atomised individuals alone. yes, there are moments where the harsher feelings rear their ugly head. but, you cannot stop loving someone if they have meant something to you—you can only love them differently. you can mourn what is ending, celebrate what has been, and welcome the ushering in of a new season.

so, let my resolution this new year be a song, with a tierce de picardi ending.

revealing the end is but a beginning.

sad at first. surprising in its turn, perhaps plaintive, often loving.

but, always, always hopeful.