I woke up this morning with a tremendous sense of relief.
2007 is over.
I don’t believe that the transition of one year to the next is akin to waving a magic wand, and yet: there is something achingly wonderful about the concept of a New Year. I step out of 2007 as if shedding a skin, stepping across an imaginary threshold and leaving some part of me behind, while something as-yet-undefined begins to take shape.
2008 is a blank book; a bare wall; an empty stage.
Every thought, every word, every action is a stroke in the book, a splash of color on the wall, a blur of movement on the stage. I want to fill this year with intentional acts of generosity and kindness; with unstructured play and exploration; with honesty and courage. To face the unknown with a heart open wide.
I want to believe that this year, everything will be wonderful, and yet I know that it will be filled with both light and shadow. Twelve months from now, some of this year’s pages will be tear-streaked, while some will be spangled with glitter. Some of the acts that grace this stage will be applause-worthy, while others will not. I know. I am often uneasy with the exposed raw nakedness of being human, but this fraught, vulnerable existence becomes more dear to me with each passing year.
There were many hours and days and weeks in 2007 when my heart felt battered and bruised beyond repair, and I thought that I couldn’t bear the sadness of this world, but here I am today: sitting quietly, willing. Still achy and bruised, but turning the page, stepping through the door, opening my palms to the sky.
One of my favorite poems bubbled to the surface of my mind upon waking this morning, and I've been savoring it ever since:
i thank you god for this most amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings; and of the gay
great happening, illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable you?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
the eyes of my eyes are opened)
- e.e. cummings
Happy {birth} day to 2008, and to you, and to me. Here is to a year full of tasting touching hearing seeing breathing – the joy and the pain, the beauty and the ugly – every bit of it precious beyond belief.
