LIttle Birds

Happy New Years!

I'm feeling very hopeful about this year- I have all sorts of the usual resolutions, with the usual reasons and expectations and dose of first of the year resolve.  I will list them in a bit~ but for now, a word or two.  Many, many of us make resolutions every year, then break them, then resolve to not make resolutions, then make them again.  Many of us may view them as negative things, unreasonable, unattainable, and for some folks that may be so.  I know that I have thought that, and wonder why I 'set myself up' like this year after year...and then, I thought again.

When I talk about resolutions with my kids at school, I explain that a resolution is a promise to yourself.  While it may include other people, it is basically a promise to do something that is primarily for you- to make yourself feel better, create a change, set a goal.  And then I had them make resolutions, which I am planning to give back later, and I took them home and read them over.  The usual standard resolutions: lose weight, get in shape, do better at school, be nicer, quit smoking.  Then the "I'm a teenager" type resolutions: smoke more pot, party more, do something outrageous.  Then the heartbreaking resolutions- be a better mother, apologize to my parents, tell the police what happened, stop hurting myself.  I promised the kids I would keep these confidential, and I will.  I will also let them know that I am right here if they need me.  That's what I can do-

and I don't know what is serious and what is not, the point is they stopped and reflected for a moment.  And that is important for everyone, be they two or twenty or two hundred.  (and under two.  I think babies know more than we think they do- just in a different way- but that is another story.) 

One of my former students had posted on facebook that they think resolutions are silly, because today is just another day, no different from yesterday or tomorrow, and that if you think that a certain *time* is going to magically, suddenly, transform your life you are wrong.  That transformation takes hard work. I respect his comment, because it has a truth to it, and he has lived through and made this transformation happen in his life- (brief story: this is the same kid that OD'ed in my class one day- while I was being observed- and was hauled off to the hospital.  After rehab and life, he has turned out more than ok- he is grown up, an adult with a job, a wife, children- he is a good dad- but he had hard, hard work to do.  and I respect that).  Back to the resolutions though-  While I acknowledge that truth, I also respect the tradition of resolutions and what they do for us:  they make us pause and reflect.  They give us a chance, every year, to recreate ourselves.  To try harder, try again, have hope that *this time* there will be a change.  This year, everything will be ok.  And that is a precious, precious thing. 

Yesterday I spent time in the city with my boy, and time at home with the manz.  The boy and I talked and shopped (gift cards! hooray for new paint!) and over indulged in delightful edibles (big Chinese, sushi, mochi, raspberry candy from Germany.  We love strange foods...).  I found the delightful little bird above in World Market- marked down from holiday, further marked down because of the broken beak, and marked down even more because I had my birthday coupon. I had seen this little bird months before, and could not afford it, but fell in love with it- and somehow it waited for me.  Broken a bit, but waiting and precious never the less.  Last night the manz and I watched comedians and laughed, ate leftovers sent by his mother (ham and cake-from-church-with the kind of icing I love and everyone else hates.  The thick heavy sugary traditional birthday cake kind of icing. yummmm).  I played with my sketchbook, drank a glass of New Years Wine (even though it gives me a headache.  But it was from the local vineyard, is delicious stuff that I had bought this fall because it was in a blue bottle...I don't waste things, even if they give me a headache, which is another lesson in itself.  Manz is no help in this, because he doesn't drink except very, very rarely, his vice is chocolate and cigarettes.)  I did my best to stay up, but folded at 10.  The midnight guns of the neighbors woke me up long enough to say 'rabbit, rabbit, rabbit'....then back into the warm nest.  

I am grateful that I have a warm nest, a happy home, a true love, a child grown.  I am grateful that I have a family, friends, students- that I am creative and love to learn.  I am grateful that thinking is fun, that I love teaching, that we can give a good life to our doggs and Mr. Turrello.  I am grateful for all that I have done, all that I have seen, all that I have been- the good and the bad, the person who I am turning out to be.

I am grateful that today there is a new promise, a new hope for the all of us.