Dawn Revisited
Imagine you wake up
with a second chance: The blue jay
hawks his pretty wares
and the oak still stands, spreading
glorious shade. If you don't look back,
the future never happens.
How good to rise in sunlight,
in the prodigal smell of biscuits -
eggs and sausage on the grill.
The whole sky is yours
to write on, blown open
to a blank page. Come on,
shake a leg! You'll never know
who's down there, frying those eggs,
if you don't get up and see.
—Rita Dove
This will be a short post, mainly just meant to send peaceful and hopeful thoughts out to each and every one of you, in this mini-hibernation time between Christmas and New Year’s Day.* May you slow and still and emerge on the other side - however long you may have, be it an evening, a day, a week, or more - with the spark of life restored in you, and the courage to face whatever lies ahead.
The days are lengthening now, and that is good.
As for me, I have been battling many nonstop house and car and pet and (endless) school district and assisted living headaches, and also pet headaches late at night that lead to stupid decisions even later at night that lead to more early morning house headaches (don’t ask). Nothing too dire, thankfully, but boy does my head hurt.
[Trigger warning: Those ophidiophobes among you might want to scroll real fast through the next picture.]
So here’s to hoping that this week brings some peace to me as well, and at least a few days where nothing goes wrong, and at least a little time to slow down (maybe even stop!) and take some deep breaths before the new year hits and time accelerates back up to its normal faster-than-the-speed-of-light pace, and the next set of headaches slithers my way.
Last year I decided - based on some post or column or essay or article I have since forgotten - that instead of resolutions, I would pick a word or two to focus on in the new year. For 2023, my words were “presence” and “deceleration.” Presence, because that’s a rare commodity we can always have more of in this Era of Distraction, and deceleration because one of my worst Achilles’ heels is my tendency to react at warp speed to whatever comes my way, and it often leads nowhere good, for me and usually for others as well. (To those of you who have experienced my white-hot lightning reflexes, especially those of you on the receiving end, I am truly and authentically sorry.) And looking back, I think I’ve done okay with both words this last year, although there is always room for improvement.
So I was thinking about what my word would be for 2024, and I had been lamenting to Ben that I sent my kids off to Christmas at their dad’s house with a lot of stress, because of all of the aforementioned pet and car and house headaches, which I was focused on instead of focusing on them. And I realized - without blaming myself too much for how I carry all the heavy loads I carry as a single mom of three kids (and four pets!), as the mother of a child with serious mental health challenges, as the person primarily responsible for my frail dad’s care, as a homeowner, and as a busy attorney with a job I love and want to keep - that it happens too often that my girls get the stressed-out version of me. And I realized that I can choose more often not to take on the extra challenges, in favor of having more time to just laugh and enjoy time with my kids and my dad and Ben and my friends.
This is not to say that I am an anxious, unhappy wreck all the time. Every night that my girls are with me, we read stories and sing songs together, and then I sit with each of them for 20-30 minutes as they go to bed, and those times are almost always delightful. Whether it is reading a funny book to Elise, or doing the New York Times Connections game with Ash and playing with her kitten together, or crying with laughter as Vee - who has an electric wit that many comedians would kill for - shouts out wrong answers to the NYT Crossword or Spelling Bee, our house is a happy place as night falls. It is just when I let life snowball, when I take on too many projects all at once, or when I forget to let the little things go, I feel my shoulders turn to granite, and the house becomes a tense and edgy place.
[Snakes in a video! Proceed with caution.]
So this year, my word is “delight.”** I will keep working on last year’s words, but to the mix I am adding this new focus, in the hope that where I can choose laughter over chores, joyful presence over anxious distraction, and appreciation for the happy moments over fixation on the stressors, I will.
(Note: This is emphatically NOT an invitation for 2024 to roll up its sleeves, observe the overwhelmingly stressful last four years I have been through, and mutter, “Challenge accepted.” Seriously.)
So Happy New Year, friends. May all good things flow your way in 2024, especially abundant delight.
*Fine. It’s not a short post. Do you even know me? What did you expect?
**If any of you have not encountered Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, get thee to a bookstore, stat. You will be delighted, I promise. And it has inspired me to keep a journal in 2024 of some kind of delight I encounter every day. I can’t wait!
Snakes alive!
Snakes in a video indeed!! (Wait! It's just one snake, right?!) Thank you for sharing your "delights!"