Measuring and Treasuring the Old Year

There are so many places to begin. Begin now, with this breath, with this moment. Begin with this gift that you woke up today and you are breathing. Something may make you smile. May make you think, may make you feel, may make you remember.

I have been in between goals for awhile. Now I steady myself to make more decisions and commitments, to commence with planning. But I am still somewhat basking in the revelry of the old year, of the year 2010 whose last few months were filled with pain and terror and strange symptoms in the head, with the death of the father and then an undiagnosable crackling in the brain, like fat being burned off on a hot griddle.

But the funeral in Virginia was beautiful, the earth and its inhabitants at their finest. And then there was Texas, the desert’s infinite beauty and we met the creatures there: its cactus and its bear.
Its bobcat, its grey fox, its Carmen deer, its Mexican ravens and blue jays, its cactus wrens, its roadrunner and javelina.

The tracks of the mountain lion. The dinosaur footprints, not just fossils but fresh prints beside the river.

And then there was what I wished for and it came true, to spend the winter holidays with the family and the niece and nephew who are just four and just two and for whom Xmas is New. And so they make it new again for us all.

I have not fully finished measuring and treasuring the old year.

The old year fuels the new year. The New Year is here.

Outside the window I watch the rain and snow compete. Many feet of the cold white snow are being splashed about by a silver rain. There must be a name for this. Yet it seems rare and I don’t recall seeing it before, so much warm rain falling on so much deep cold snow.

The driveway is a rectangular swimming pool, hemmed in by ice. The drips from the power lines make swirling circles on the surface, as if fish are coming up to bite.

This year the blog may find its subject. Last year I left it when the migraines so overwhelmed me that the blog was about to become a migraine blog. This week I have had head pain for three consecutive days but my dreams and hopes and I are not yet backburnered. Still, I am not sure I am out of the woods. Yet.

Perhaps this blog will just be what it will be.

Hello to you. Hello to me.