Happy New Year
Breathing in a new season
Yesterday I walked six miles in my gold skirt and sipped steaming tea in the sun, reacquainting myself with the old ways of welcoming a New Year.
I felt scared, and I softened, remembering how much that dance goes on and on and on.
As night began to fall, I turned on all the twinkle lights, let the dishes be, and let myself love the unfolding of a familiar but ever-shifting story.
We ate warm food and mandarins in the low light and toasted with crimson colored kombucha; a sleepy cat kept us company all evening, even if he was asleep much of the time, perhaps dreaming of all that will unspool in the year to come.
Just before midnight, I threw open the window in our dark, tiny kitchen to let the old year out and the new year in. I got on my knees in the dark, alone, breathing in Boston for a few minutes, as the breeze came in through the screen, the cold air like the Atlantic, both burning and burnishing me at once. I imagined flying over the city to the sea, all kinds of unknowns roiling in the depths, and sense a small but sturdy revolution in my own heart.
I honor this city, its history and mine intertwined like lovers, my breath a prayer.
It’s a New Year, but like beads on a string, we remain connected to all that circles back, again and again and again.
Wishing you a soft and sweet start to the New Year, one in which you feel held, no matter what you are holding right now.