Unfortunately, the majority of the population continues to ignore the fact that January is the worst of all the worst possible months. In the coolness ranking, January ranks between eleventh and twelve, undercut by February at most, but definitely behind November and March. The enlightened rightly call January the “Monday among the months”: laboriously and in vain. The entire oeuvre of this month is fed by this gigantic, annually recurring misunderstanding: January makes everything new.
Christmas grouches are over the moon that it glittered. They drag their half-dried Christmas trees onto one of these heaps by January 1 at the latest, the sight of which is one of the most desolate things you can see in life in Munich. One has to think of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about the Christmas tree that dreamed of Christmas Eve and then, after a moment of splendor, is thrown away and finally burned.
Have a drink first. Oh no, that’s not possible, because you’re doing “Dry January”, a January without alcohol. Another project that Munich residents euphorically throw themselves into. Alternatively, they celebrate a “Veganuary,” a vegan January, sign up for “30-day yoga challenges,” and sign strange deals at gyms that offer them “exclusively for the New Year.”
They think of January as a virgin piece of paper on which they think they can create a better version of themselves. The disappointment is even greater for most people when they find out with complete surprise every year that January doesn’t do anything new. That someone dies in January too, even though you pay attention to your diet. In the past week alone, three Munich originals have died, Ali Mitgutsch, Herbert Achternbusch and one of the Hotpant twins, whose oeuvre is based on great, idiosyncratic art and without which this city would shine even less. Can’t imagine what’s to come, there are still a few days of January left.
Looked at soberly (“Dry January!”), January is rather tired, grey, pale, like the morning after the festival, not empty, just swept clean because Munich’s industrious waste management team was already banging away at 6.30 a.m. with those annoyingly loud street cleaners. The air is bad, fine dust hangs everywhere. You buy overpriced tulips because you think things are going up again for a long time, but even that is deceptive, because spring is just as far away in January as it was last summer.