The period between Christmas and New Year's is a fold in time you can comfortably disappear into. It's been a feature of my life since I entered grade school and when I'm lucky, exists outside the boundaries of responsibility - a sugar-coated place filled with Christmas cookies, leftovers and newly unwrapped presents. As a kid I would sit by the illuminated tree and read or sometimes just listen to music and stare off into space, the ornaments in the foreground blurring into a soft focus. "What are you thinking about?" my mum would ask as I seemed to be deeply pensive about something. "Nothing," I'd manage to answer. Which was true and wasn't . There was no fixed destination for my meandering thoughts, but I would feel compelled to escape the activities of the household and retreat into some kind of inner sanctuary from time to time. But especially around the New Year, which felt significant somehow. Like I was supposed to extract some kind of meaning from the turning over of the calendar. Was I now supposed to be different? More mature? Closer to an adult and the person I would become? None of this was conveyed to my parents who must have wondered if their youngest child wasn't a bit odd, always daydreaming. That tendency never left me. Instead I've had to put it away in order to function in the world and only take it down off the shelf at certain times. This golden week - the last of the year - is precious because the demands normally placed on me are out of sight. I can collect the days of the year lived in my mind and arrange them carefully in context. And step outside my life for a little while.