And just like that, it's 2024.  

I love the elder days of December that provide extended periods of quiet contemplation before the birth of the new year brings a front of clean, crisp possibility.  Although a new year can easily lead us into the stalemate states of shoulding ourselves to be thinner...stronger...richer...better....or remaining steadfast in our complacency to what is comfortable and routine, it doesn't have to. 

This week, I wrote you a poem, a prayer for serenity. 

Climbing into bed, it occurred to me the nightly ritual of covering ourselves is the best place to begin, again, and again, and again.

Treasure

If I list the acts I am most proud of, and which bring me the greatest joy, raising Pip and Phoebe would certainly be at the top, but right below: gardening.

Every November, I sit on the ground between my leaf-covered garden beds, legs straight out, with a basket of last summer's remaining garlic at my side.

In the midst of a long rally at the baseline, I stepped into hit the ball, slipped, and heard a loud "POP," followed by an inexplicable sensation in my lower leg- the pain took a moment to register.  The ball came back to my side of the court, but I remained where I was, in disbelief: 

"You forgot to hit purchase on those hair ties and hangers," the rigid voice reprimands, abruptly waking me from my slumber.  "And while I have your attention," she continues, "you need to pay your credit card.  And your plants are going to die, you haven't watered them in over a week!"

"A pod of whales!"
"A herd of elephants!"
"A pride of lions!"
"A school of fish!"
"A flock of sheep!"

Lately, when I wake up in the middle of the night, my racing mind crosses over the potatoes I planted a few weeks ago in my garden.  As soon as I remember the buried spuds, my mind settles there, in the dirt, and my nighttime angst of being awake too soon is pacified.

This week, in our Blue Light movement classes, we're focusing on the primary series of the Ashtanga practice.  Ashtanga was the gateway to my practice 25 years ago.  I remember my first yoga class well.  Dressed in a tattered pair of cotton leggings and a go-to tank top (this was pre-Lululemon and the lycra, form-fitting yoga fashion industry we know too well today), my friend, Holcomb, who I adore and admire, and would follow anywhere (except West, away from the ocean) picked me up one Tuesday evening. 

Floundering: I imagine the moments after the fight, when the hooked silver fish is reeled out of the ocean, and dropped onto the glaring fiberglass, where it flops furiously, stenchy scales and blood flying, in the vertebrate's novel, wild, search for water.

In January 2021, I wrote an Into the Blue entry titled EARTH; I shared with you, how over the years, I have developed a quirky affinity towards EA words--when EA shows up, my senses heighten, I pay attention. I included a list of some of my favorite EA words. Many of you responded, reminding me of words I forgot to include: sea, sweat, ocean, heart... But none of us mentioned death.

When I gave birth to Pip, I had an epidural: I was sucking on a red popsicle during contractions--I think I even took a nap. Three years later, when I gave birth to Phoebe, I decided I wanted to experience childbirth without drugs to numb the pain.

I recently read in Anne Lamott's book Dusk Night Dawn: "Never give up on intimate friendships or science or nature. They have always saved us, and they will again."

Have you read Pema Chödrön's Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change? I read this book the summer after our second child, Phoebe, was born. I was overcome by the affirmation that there is no certainty in our lives, and everything, like the smell of my breastfeeding babe's breath, the stroke of their blonde peach-fuzz, and contour of their plump cheek, is fleeting.

Have you ever been at the mercy of water?

At the end of 2012, our dear friends, Holcomb and Conor, were visiting us at our house in Charleston between Christmas and New Years. We had just put Pip and Phoebe down for their naps.

I love to turn stones over in my palm, partly due to the soothing nature of the ritual; partly due to the reminder to consider all angles of a matter at hand. When I discover an unexpected color or texture, I am reminded not to make assumptions about what I cannot see/know, and my understanding of the rock is deepened.

I hovered over my 9-year-old daughter as I tried to coax her out of the car, "Once you start playing, you'll feel better, and no one will be thinking about that fact that you were late," I reasoned.

"28 minutes late, Mom!!!" Phoebe came back, close to tears, seatbelt still on.