IMG_6683

This morning commenced like the day before. I slid into my black slippers, the comfort of the soft fabric helping me ease into the day. I opened the blinds in the living room, the light shining on my face, surprising me with its welcome. My feet clanked across the kitchen – I could hear the familiar complaint of my husband and my daughter in my ear – tread softly, but I’ve never managed the art of walking gracefully. I smiled as this thought bubbled in my head. Grabbing my cup, I glanced at the familiar words etched on the side of my favorite coffee mug, “Write Here, Write Now.” I relaxed at the sound of coffee dripping with a rhythm I adore.

With one sip of warm goodness I attempted to assess whether I need to feel different or majestic since transitioning into 2016. Hours before we were anchored by another year. And now another. My morning didn’t usher in epiphanies like a magician pulling tricks from behind his ear. I’ve never quite understood the revelry around New Year’s Eve. Ringing in another year is yet another marker of the passage of time I find increasingly difficult to digest. I’ve talked repeatedly about my need to hold on. I clench my fists harder and curse the calendar. It keeps turning its pages almost carelessly, not caring about how painful it is to move from one moment to the next.

As I moved through the day, I grazed my way through my moments doing what I enjoyed – a morning run with the mountains as my backdrop, the combination of the sun and the cool breeze accompanying each step, watching my daughter play tennis with my husband, listening to music as I rode my bike and marking midday with lunch with my family. There was also time for reading, writing, some work and laughs at jokes that my family would only understand. Everything so ordinary. But so right. This commemoration of 2016 settled in a way which felt easy and light, but I’ve found this is the essence of paying attention to the magic in the mundane. It’s always those everyday moments that sustain me heralding me with its familiarity, cushioning the sorrow and melancholy of time’s sword.

Today I appreciated the clarity of the blue skies. The ability to run. The morning phone call to my mom. The comfort of my office. The joy of tapping on my computer. Teasing my husband on a quirk I only know about. Drinking cold, ice tea in the middle of the afternoon. Texting a few friends. Thinking about my word of the year. Taking a deep breath. Cleaning the oven (yes, even this). Perusing Facebook and reading blogs. And this, rereading a quote I absolutely think is the best advice to usher everyday, not just the swift turn of the calendar:

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead.
Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It’s too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.
Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.
Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them.
Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.”

– Neil Gaiman

My wish for you and me, to have more of this ordinary life. Let 2016 commence.