This year none of us will be together as the clock strikes midnight. We are scattered from California to Arizona to Virginia to Africa. And the two of us still at home will be at different places tonight (as is only to be expected when one of us is a teenager).

Another stage. Another adventure. A backward look, surely one won’t matter. A photo that captures the spirit of this year, a spirit of departure and of what many parents see of their children as they leave home. Their backs, their luggage — their faces toward a future we can scarcely imagine.

But a new year dawns for all of us, the young, the old, the somewhere in between. And surely this is good. Just the fact that it’s happening for us, for all of us, is good.

Photo by Claire Capehart