Last week I led a Quiet Day at a nearby retreat house. There were 18 of us there on a cold, winter day and we sat around a cozy fireplace in addition to bundling up and walking around the beautiful grounds. I asked the group to think about this season as a hinge between the old year and the one to come and the first question for silent reflection was what gift did you receive in 2019?
Having received too many gifts to even list I wondered how would I choose? But after a few minutes of reflection it came to me, the gift of friendship. Every day I am blessed by contact with friends from Texas to Maine, from childhood to now. I feel loved, accepted, respected. As I wrote about this in my journal I felt a smile on my face and warmth in my heart.
For several years now I've chosen a word for the year rather than some resolution impossible to keep. The word for 2019 was plant.At the beginning of last year Bill and I had been in Maryland for 3 years and my feet were not yet on the ground. I complained mightily about the traffic, the summer heat and humidity, and a seeming lack of enthusiasm for classical music. Having lived in many different places I realized each location has its own personality and way of doing things, and to buck that only brings unhappiness. It was time to accept, adapt and adjust. So, plan for the traffic, stay in the air-conditioning on a sweltering summer day, and listen to a recording or one of three classical NPR stations available.
Specifically, we've invited frequent dinner guests, attended community events, and hosted a neighborhood party. And most concretely, with Bill's help, I started a new flower garden which first involved the most basic chore of digging up soil and tilling the ground. Last summer it looked bare, with a few annuals and a couple of perennials struggling in the newly turned earth. But little by little, year by year, it will become beautiful, assuming I put in the work. You see, I took my word plant literally and it made all the difference.
Back to the Quiet Day, I asked the attendees to wander outside to look for signs of new life while thinking about an intent for the new year. My intent came quickly and easily- write. For four years I have been remiss in writing this blog, which is one of the ways I notate and make sense of my life. My intent is to post at least twice a month- there, I've said it aloud! I hope you'll hold me to it.
Happy New Year
