we do that dance
light on dark, old on new, shiny on dull. we’re married to the magic of remembrance, made bold by possibility, held aloft on a nail in the wall of existence.
a new calendar cracks open, full of empty days, blank spaces, blocks of time.
i want to leave it, the entire book, unmarred.
i know i won’t. i know there will be appointments to schedule, birthdays to remember, plans to be reminded of, just as i know i’ll forget to look sometimes, when i get caught up in the vortex of living.
it’s winter again, it’s new years again, it’s thursday again. we march like soldiers through a forest of seasons and wish to be the one in command.
.
i bought a new small frying pan in december, to replace the old one i’d burned peppers in one too many times. but i don’t use it much. the old cast iron one discarded by my 89-year-old friend as she moved from home to apartment sits on my stove now, always at the ready. it turns my eggs just a little dark, but i love flavor of the stories it adds to my food.
.
i don’t have a word or a resolution or even an intention pointing my way on 2016’s compass. i have this pan made of borrowed promises, i have these same four walls to hold me in, i have this sky that is forever creeping in my window.
.
i have everything i need.
.
.
.
.
January 7th, 2016 at 9:07 am
you do. and you are wise enough to know that.
i smiled as you talked about your calendar – i cracked mine open, and wrote everything i already knew oh-so-neatly, with the perfect pen. as the year goes on, as i move away from this week of almost nothing, as i begin to be busy, i’ll use whatever pen or pencil is close to hand and it will messy all up.
just like life. just like that table i once wrote about, the one at the party, the one where, by the end of the evening, we’d all squooshed our chairs close – to better share the best secrets and conversation.
we will squoosh up our days and look back at the end of the year and smile. and wish we had someone else to clean it all up.
January 7th, 2016 at 9:39 am
This is complex, and so full of flavor.
January 7th, 2016 at 11:56 am
So much truth to this….and – as so often happens – we’ve come to this place at the same time.
There is no real magic. Life happens. Our blank calendars fill themselves up with days.
You do have all you need. Happy New Year!!!
January 7th, 2016 at 12:50 pm
Love every little bit of your words here, especially about your friends cast iron frying pan and the knowing that you have everything you need … and that you didn’t pick a word!!