1-1 On the eve…….
I get a lovely bittersweet feeling. We’ve come a long way, all of us, and here we are, united in the spirit of reverie. The band starts to announce the dwindling seconds, the passing of another year in 10, 9, 8…Happy New Year! All kiss and hug and wish well and blow horns and shout. It’s a commotion of love; friends, strangers, all wishing well, clinking glasses, popping corks. After a time, the flurry dies down. The build up and anticipation fades and the bar is dirty, full of half filled glasses and streamers. The bartenders get back to work, wiping things away. People grab their coats, parting words are said, and in an instant we are back to ourselves. The year has begun and it is just like any other day. We are back to our constructs and reserves. Still, we march into a new year, happy to know we were acknowledged and we’ll hold each other in our hearts if not always in our thoughts. It’s an extraordinary event, this passing of the torch from one year to the next. In that brief moment, on the precipice of seconds, we look each other straight in the eye and truly wish each other well. The lights glisten and cast warm shadows on the faces of the New Year revelers. Sequins and libations abound. Loves finding, loves found, hope and joy are everywhere. Were it not for the ticking of the clock and the streamers, would we allow ourselves to be happy? One needs to find the joy when the table is bare and without adornment, for there too is a beauty and forgiveness that we can all partake of. The feast is always before us, bountiful and true.
4-12
The day has stilled. Winter’s will is at last ebbing. It realizes it can’t stay. The grasses are too green, the budded trees defy its whiteness with a haze of burgundy hovering above the pavement. Their sturdy husks are ready to burst forth. Winter’s blanket will be cast aside as nothing. The wind and rain and heavy snow blustered and confused but it has no real weight. We know better. Winter itself laughs at the irony of its gorgeous white snow covering the bright grasses and early leafed trees. The green and growing is simply too certain of itself, its color and strength can’t be hindered. It is still cold and rainy. The wind will blow some more and flurries will fly with its will. But winter is over. Spring is here. A drop of sun and all its colors reveal themselves. Its resilience is apparent..
7-1
Quiet lake. Striated lines of blue and white as if the sky is leaking out of its boundaries and falling onto the water, infusing itself with the sea, finding a space next to the waves so as not to be too intrusive. The finest hint of pink extends along the horizon, a pastel sunrise remembered. Today it seems there’s no water, no sky, just abstract brush strokes, broad and random, flat and luminous. Glinting dots of sunlight flicker on the water like daylight fireflies dancing gleefully on the surface.
In the alley, I came upon a lush row of hollyhocks, abundant and awash in color; maroons, whites, and varieties of pink. I stood mesmerized at this row of entrancing blooms set against the fading daylight. So alive and vibrant in this city of cement, brick and stone. White daises, columbine, and dandelions were nearby, sprouting out of the bare cement. Colorful glory, will, and desire hidden in the alley. For free. No watering necessary.
11/1
Waiting for the sunrise, waiting for my ship to come in, waiting for a change of season, of mind; waiting for the next step, the next blow or the great delight, waiting for inspiration, somewhere in there, a nugget buried and beautiful, ready to be revealed, to change the world.
My friends dug up all their lilac bushes. Why would anyone do that? Don’t they see their extraordinary beauty, their living-ness? Instead they now have a picket fence and a clearer view of the road. What’s important to one is not important to the other. We must all learn to live and let go. Everything changes.
My right foot hasn’t followed my left so effortlessly today.
Welcome November! Hearty welcome indeed. Stepping into morning after all Hallows Eve, streets full of costumed goblins are now ultimate silence, no birds or cars, just the glow of the coming sunrise. We watched the golden leaves drift off the branches, delicate fluttering in the constant winds, from here to there, till most all the trees are bare, their fullness forgotten. How quickly the seasons move. Even when one keeps an eye on them morning noon and night, they retain some mystery for themselves.