Lili's Day

Because my daughter has no particular religious affiliation, she has chosen to give her daughters a Welcome to the World party rather than the traditional christening. Lily is seven months old this month and tomorrow is her special day. This is my poem to her...

For Liliana on the Occasion of

Her Welcome to the World Day

We get used to seeing

Through our own eyes, thinking

We know the world.

Then a small child is placed in our arms

And everything changes.

Our inward eyes turn outward,

And we see the world as it is – wild and wondrous!

The green of a new leaf,

The aching sweetness of the sparrow’s song.

We can giggle at the grass between our toes,

Jump in puddles,

Weep over small hurts,

And hug with abandon.

There is at once an innocence

And a deep wisdom

In a child’s eyes that allows us to see

Our own eternity.

Eventide

Sunrise

The day is slowly fading toward dusk. Birds fly in pairs across the pale sky, calling goodnight as they go. From the topmost branch of a slender maple, the cardinal sings his evening song. At the farm, the guinea hens yawp at the setting sun from the roof of their henhouse. The horizon is pure, melted gold.

The small breeze that ruffled my hair and flipped the pages of my book this afternoon has become a mere whisper among the grasses. But, late this afternoon it fanned a smoldering pile of logs behind one of the barns into a crackling fire that threatened to burn the remaining small wood that separates my cottage from several neighbors. I heard the snap of burning wood and smelled the acrid smoke. I ran to call the fire department which came, sirens screaming, a scant five minutes later. There was no great damage done, but for a few minutes my heart beat fast at the thought of what might have been.

Dawn and dusk are my favorite times of day. The air is most often still and at this time of year smells like moist earth and green, growing things. The same hush that begins the day falls again at eventide; body and spirit rest in the silence and soft light.

Sunset

Spring Prayer

Spring arrives at the cottage in shades of yellow.

I do not want spring to rush past me unnoticed so I stand on my doorstep at dawn, breathing in the still cold air, noting which trees are budding, which flowers are blooming. I watch the sun roll up over the horizon, painting the sky, the tree trunks, the rooftops, the lawn with a gold-tipped brush. The birds serenade the sunrise; even the rooster next door adds his voice.

Mid-morning finds me out of doors and on my knees. If prayer can be a living thing, then heaven must be besieged with gardeners' appreciation. Flowers are such beautiful things - ephemeral, delicate and yet so strong. I like knowing that my vegetables are grown from organic seeds and tended by my own hand. I don't mind weeding. It gives me a chance to be quiet and contemplative. And the reward is a tidy garden bed.

The days are never long enough to do all I have planned. Evening finds me watching as the sun sinks slowly behind the mountain, drawing its light with it until the sky darkens and the stars appear. In the swamp the spring peepers chorus and the larks call goodnight to one another. The blue heron that fishes at the edges of the pond groks as it flies homeward. Otherwise, it is very still, as if the air were holding its breath.

I like knowing that tomorrow (unless it rains) will be the same as today and for a few weeks yet spring will release its tiny miracles of unfolding leaves and petals.

Thank you, Mohini

I have been so busy setting up my new computer I haven't had much time to use it! Events have conspired to shorten my time at home lately and much of it has been spent trying to transfer photos, music, and documents from my old computer to this one. There's a marvelous little tool called a migration assistant tucked in my applications folder but apparently we didn't understand each other. I wanted all my music, all my documents and all my photos to migrate. The MA didn't get that so I've had to resort to various subterfuges (my favorite is Dropbox) to makes sure nothing got left behind. It's been a tedious, weekend-long project.

The newer version of Microsoft Office I purchased required a pin number to activate and of course, it didn't. It was a valid pin, said the first person I called at Microsoft. Perhaps, she suggested, I should call the retailer and get them to activate my card. Turns out they already had. My second, rather impatient call to Microsoft was answered by a woman in India, where it was three o'clock in the morning. She met my slightly frantic tone politely, assuring me that she could help. Then she did something that amazed me - she asked permission to tap into my computer so she could see what I was doing and wham! just like that this person, thirty years my junior and from the other side of the world, was moving the selection arrow around on my computer. I still don't understand how a radio works; this kind of technology is far beyond my comprehension. With a few clicks accompanied by a concise explanation of what she was doing, she activated my download and set about installing the latest updates.

While the little vertical barbershop pole wound its way along the bar, we chatted. We called each other by our first names, Mohini and Pauline. She asked about the weather here and told me how hot is was there. We talked about advances in technology and how she had to constantly train to keep up with it all so that she could be of help to callers. We discussed the difficulties of language barriers, and of always being patient with people while they sorted through their frustrations online. She was the personification of patience and helpfulness and before we knew it, the program was up and running.

Mohini's graciousness, her infectious laughter, her enthusiasm for her job, came across the phone line and changed the way I thought of people on the other end of helplines. We who have technical problems are impatient to have them solved. We've paid money for a product and we want it to work perfectly. But little in life is trouble free. Thank goodness for the Mohinis of the world who, with expertise and grace under pressure, teach us more than how to use our computers. They teach us that kindness and patience are far more valuable than the machines they are helping us to understand.

A Moment Here

The days go by so quickly, full of small, precious moments - hugs from little arms, pats from little hands, toothless smiles, big-girl words, first haircuts, first roll-overs and attempts at crawling. There are runny noses to wipe, worms to discover, bugs to inspect, shoes to tie, sand buckets to fill, clouds to watch, songs to sing. Daily household chores get fit in where they can. As for writing a poem a day, well! I thought about it but words and paper haven't met in a long time.

Here's one that managed to write itself in my head. I've taken a moment just now to jot it down here.

The prompt: Write about an intangible gift.

Unwrapping the Obvious

There might not be a deity,
long hair flowing,
robes folded neatly about his feet,
book of deeds open
on a gracious, forgiving lap,
who gives a fig leaf if I'm happy,

but there is a small child
whose arms circle my neck,
whose wild imagination
includes me in all her games,
who points out worms as small miracles,
who holds my hand when we cross the street,
who cries when I leave
and grins with shy delight when I return.

There may be no point in praying,
but there is a point to living,
to providing a teething baby
a friendly finger to chew on,
and two arms to rock her safely to sleep.

There may not be a deity
somewhere in the far reaches
who listens, who speaks,
but there is infinity
in the eyes of a child.

 Thanks for this, Hilary

April 4

Write 7 small (3-5 lines), disparate poems with a mysterious ending.

If I were a cat
with 9 lives
would I would live eight of them
recklessly?

The trees bend and bow
to each other.
The wind dances with them.
Who plays the violin?

The air hangs heavy as a magician's cape,
full of rabbits and scarves and half-sawn bodies.
Lightning is the severing wand.
What calls forth the magic?

Why does a cat
choose to drink a dirty puddle
when a bowl of clean water
sits just inside the open door?

I would like to wake up
some morning in another world.
Would I crave coffee then
or long to run?

People only see
what we let them see.
In turn we only see
what we allow ourselves
to acknowledge.

How is it
the wind always knows
which way to blow?

April 5

How a poem gets started... 

Start anywhere.
Start with a chair.
Wonder who sat in it
and chipped off, with a fingernail,
a piece of paint shaped like
Michigan.

Did someone sit opposite and drum
his fingers impatiently,
beating a nervous tattoo of sound
on the scarred table?

Why has one chair fallen over?


April 6

Music becomes the metaphor — the notes are boats, the violin forgives, the universe becomes a tambourine played against your thigh.  Go anywhere with this.

combined with

April 7

Write a poem having to do with listening, perhaps a deeper kind of listening, a listening below the words and in beyond the sounds.  Or your poem might simply tell of something heard in the world.

resulted in:

Listening hard, I heard
underneath the unremitting, pounding rain
the dawn-call of a rooster,
and under that the bark of a small dog.
Beneath that a mourning dove spoke,
and then a daffodil opened.
Too soft to hear,
a worm tunneled beneath a blade of grass,
and a cloud's shadow drifted across the yard.

The music of the spheres is a constant,
ever-changing symphony of movement,
of water on earth on rock on air,
like a cricket's wings
rubbing together in the stilly dark.

More...

April 2

In this second exercise move beyond pure image into I statements, You statements, metaphor, or perhaps anthropomorphizing.

The grass on the other side

may be greener

but it's still grass

At dusk

I watch the swallows play chicken

with the gnats

To be pithy

one must put large thoughts

in small spaces

April 3

 Write a poem that a child might write.   Fall into that voice of slightly goofy innocence and wonder.  Trust simplicity and the way children give human emotions to objects... 



My toes like sand between them,

and the foam the waves leave behind.

If toes could giggle, mine would.

They would laugh out loud like the gulls

that swoop and glide

because they know that tomorrow

they will still be at the beach.



April 1

April is National Poetry Month. I receive prompts every day from a writer friend. Here's April 1.

Write a few small poems that are purely image.  Do not interject yourself or your thoughts into your few lines of clear and exact image. Just describe.  Do not allow in abstractions.  Do not address the reader.  Notice particulars.  Make every word count.

Sunlight dances in silver slippers

where the whale disappeared.

The sun rises

on the wings of seagulls.

The sky itself is silent.

Seagulls are noisy children

of the sky.

Circus animal clouds

parade under the big-top sky.

Just Breathe

I have been gone from home for two weeks and tomorrow will head off on another jaunt to visit my older daughter. While I was away, the snow melted, the daffodils pushed green spears up through the ground, and the snowdrops all around the cottage have bloomed at once. When I get back next weekend, I imagine there will be chives and parsley and oregano almost ready to eat. I saw their little shoots poking through the mulch in the herb garden. It won't take much more than a week of alternating rain and sun to coax them to edible height.

I have been lax with my blog visits; I'm sorry. Limited access to a computer and even less time to write or read here has made me a stranger. April is national poetry month and I've signed up to receive prompts from a local poet. Some may show up here if I can find time to scribble my responses. Meanwhile, thank you for all your kind comments on my sporadic posts. Someday I may be back on schedule!

Spring Forward

First catkins.

The wind is singing in the trees, the sun is high in the sky, the birds are serenading from the treetops. The very air beckons come out, come out! So, I go. Underfoot the ground is soggy, spongy with seeping moisture and melting frost. I look around to make sure no one is watching and then skip and hop down the meadow path, flinging my arms out to the wind. I twirl and dance all by myself among the field grasses, feeling five years old and happily unfettered.

All around me are signs of impending spring—rushing water in the creek, the faintest brush of yellow across the willow tops, a balminess to the late afternoon that speaks of April. A red-winged blackbird chortles to itself among the rushes at the creek’s edge. Two cardinals carry on a conversation in song, back and forth, whistle for whistle until their voices overlap and run into each other. Five fat crows digging for things in the flattened grass make raucous comments as I pass and disgruntled, lift themselves off on glossy wings to dig farther afield.

I stop to admire the catkins on a pussy will bush. Soft and silvery gray, they look like furry little dewdrops. Every tree and bush bears fat buds ready to burst in the lengthening daylight and burgeoning warmth. I leave the meadow, duck into the woods. Sunlight slants through the trees, burnishing last year’s discarded leaves, pinpointing abandoned bird nests and polishing the soft, punky sides of fallen logs. Here the wind, filtered by a thick stand of trees, does not push so hard. There is solace here among the great weathered trunks and strong branches, comfort and strength and such beauty that my heart lifts and soars.

High in the southeastern sky the moon is a pale thumbprint pasted on blue paper. The sun sinks lower, taking the west wind with it until the whole meadow lies quiet, gilded, and I am the only thing stirring as far as I can see. I too, stand still, unwilling to disturb such peace. But, the sun path at the edge of the meadow is too tempting. I flee the chill of the shadowed ground, skip and hop into the waning sunshine.

More snow is predicted for the middle of the week. Winter is not done with us yet but oh, these days of golden promise will keep me happy until the promise is fulfilled.

There's No Going Back Now

Tucked in a sheltered corner, the first snowdrops of the season!

February is gone. The lion winds of March are sweeping what’s left of winter toward the melting warmth of April. There are signs—daylight lingers in the sky until six in the evening and glows again softly at six in the morning. The zealous sun melts the snow in daytime, no matter how many times the temperature plunges after dark. My path and driveway are slick with ice from the tug of war between winter and spring.

There is a change in the air as well. There are cold days, to be sure. Today's sleet forced me to bundle up when just a few days ago I had to shed hat and mittens and loosen the top button of my coat. It is such days tucked between the cold ones—the teasers—that are the first indicators of seasonal change. The great shift will occur when the teasers are the norm and the cold days come as a surprise.

There is a freshness to the air that belies the staleness of the snow. I can almost smell spring, the sweetness that comes of freshly plowed ground and of green and growing things. When the afternoon sun shines down on the south-facing snow banks, Robert Frost’s silver lizards wiggle down the slopes, countless little rivulets of melted snow making their way into oblivion. My nose, all my senses, know what’s coming. 

So do the birds. The chickadees that come to the feeder slip into their two-note spring song now and then, as if practicing for April. High in the treetops the little finches that winter over sing to each other in the late afternoons. A few winter hardy robins venture out of the roadside brush to flit over the meadow, their orange undersides flashing brightly against the snow. The geese have just this week returned to fill the skies with their raucous vees and the red-winged blackbirds have come back to stake claims in the swamps. In just a few weeks the silent mornings will again give way to the joyful sounds of birdsong and evenings will be serenaded by spring peepers.

It is the season of bursting catkins, of the yellowing of willows and the reddening of dogwood withes. I know my garden perennials are beginning to stir deep down at their roots and I've just spotted the first snowdrops pushing up through the leaf mold. The maple trees give no visible sign that soon their sweet sap is rising but some are already decorated with collecting buckets. Seed and flower catalogs outnumber any other in my mailbox and those that sell clothing are introducing their summer lines. 

The pastel season is approaching. The glaring white snow, the dull gray clouds, and the washed out blue of the sky will give way slowly to petal pink, to daffodil yellow, to that lovely, ineffable shade of new leaf green. The months of waiting for spring have turned to weeks and will turn to days soon now - soon.

What it was like on Sunday

Snow that crunched underfoot just last week makes a sighing sound under my boots. Icicles that clutched the roofline have cried themselves to death. Dawn came with a mere lightening of the sky, but birds sang as though they knew the sun was somewhere rising; the cardinal and its mate dropped liquid notes into the morning, the jay sang its squeaky wheel song.

Rain and then snow and then rain fall, a curtain of moisture linking earth and air, making the snow and sky one color against which the stark branches of elm and oak and maple are lightly penciled. The light is cottony and soft, holding the day in suspension between brittle cold and increasing warmth. Despite its lack of color and definition, it is a hopeful day, easing the way between the end of winter and the beginning of spring, teasing with its relaxation of winter’s cold grip on the land and our souls.

Unexpected in Winter

For my friend J who likes neither poetry in general nor an extended winter...

When skies turn the color

of an old metal bucket

and cold rains fall without mercy

on the sodden pines,

it serves us well to seek solace

in the hidden colors -

the scarlet of the wintergreen berry

tucked under emerald leaves,

the sudden flash of a blue wing

or a red feather,

the fading orange of the oak leaf,

the last flame of the sumac.

Purple smoke pipes a line

of indecipherable writing across the horizon

and the washing,

left on the line in hopes of sun,

waves pale hands in your direction.

Lately

Some of the "guys" playing croquet

My current schedule - three and half days with my granddaughters and three and a half days home - has put me somewhat out of the blogging loop. There is no time between peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bottles of formula, playtime on the floor and fiercely resisted nap time, laundry and dishes and general tidying up, to sit and read, to contemplate and compose. Weekends home seem to fill up of their own accord. There's always grocery shopping and house cleaning to do, laundry to wash and errands to run. I remember being told that I'd be busier in retirement than I ever was in my working life but I didn't see how. Now I do.

Days with my daughter and her family are full of noise and bustle. The Bean is a very active toddler who starts the day slowly (like her grandmother) but once she's fully awake it's run, run, run until bedtime. We color, play with clay, take care of her dollies, and play elaborate games with her "guys," a collection of small plastic action figures and wooden dollhouse family members. They all have names and personalities. There's Guy Guy who's always, always crying and needs lots of attention. (I suspect that's an outgrowth of Baby Lily's entrance into the Bean's life as an infant in constant need of Mama's attention). There's Mama Teddy who, as the matriarch of the clan, takes care of everyone. She spends a lot of time in the dollhouse kitchen. Tito, New Guy, Dude and Nana hang out together and have adventures. There's also Caco, Mama Teddy's sidekick, Eday (Bean's pronunciation of her own name), and even a Baby Lily wrapped in a bright red bunting. In addition, there's a school bus full of little, squatty people collectively called the Mee-mos and a group of alien looking plastic fellows known as the Odgie Codgies. It took me weeks to remember everyone's name!

A model baby and cooperative one year old, Bean has entered the terrible twos with gusto. Cross her and she folds her little arms across her chest and glowers from under lowered brows. Her words are very distinct. "Okay Nini," has been replaced with, "I don't want to do dat," stated firmly and without compromise.

Her sister, Baby Lily is a chunky, happy little girl who thrives on bottles supplemented with cereal, bananas, and applesauce. At four and a half months she can sit up with a minimum of added support, rolls over if left on a blanket on the floor, and grins toothlessly more than she cries. Sleep is her nemesis. She catnaps for twenty minutes at a time, making caring for her a constant process. By the end of three and a half days, I'm pretty worn out and ready for some cottage downtime.

By contrast, the cottage is elaborately quiet. Everything is in its place. I waken naturally without baby soundtracks. I putter, I sit down often, I doze in my rocking chair. I take walks after lunch and read whole book chapters at a gulp. My tea is always hot. The hours not taken up by household chores or trips to the store are open and I'm free to fill them as I wish.

Some of my favorite hours are spent reading your posts. I may not visit as often as before but you all give me something to think about on the days I hold a bottle or hum a lullaby or stand at the sink washing endless dishes. Thanks for that.

A quiet moment with Baby Lily

Hellfire, Damnation, and Spit

My left leg has been on fire for three days running, a result of a pinched sciatic nerve, making the slightest movement painful and walking nearly impossible. I move -slowly- from one point to another hunched like an old woman, dragging that leg along like a sack of coals. There is something about intense and constant pain that alters the personal landscape. Inconsequential moments loom large: how many steps from the bed to the bath, how many minutes to prepare a meal, how far from sofa to sink and back while trying to carry a plate. The things I do without thought, with no more than passing attention suddenly have all my attention.

I sit on the sofa and survey my domain in a new light. I watch the morning sun shimmer through hanging window decorations. Two red glass birds and a prism of dried flowers cast the sun across the floor in a rainbow of colors. Dust motes dance in the beams and settle on the furniture. Dusting, however, will have to wait, as will washing up and vacuuming and polishing. For a rather active woman, this forced halt of things needing doing is both a curse and a blessing. It's hard to let work wait and freeing to sit idle, dreaming in the sunshine. The afternoon sun pours through the west window and lays itself across the end of my bed. I lie myself down in its warmth and try not to think about how hard it will to get up again.

There are other things I am reluctant to put off but must. There will be no babysitting for a few days, no playing on the floor with the Bean, no carrying her upstairs to bed, or outside to play in the snow. There will be no snuggling Baby Lily as she drinks her milk or tries out her voice at every point of eye contact. There will be no scurrying about trying to tidy the house or make dinner before my work-weary daughter and son-in-law get home at night.

I've had acupuncture and physical therapy, TENS treatments and massage. I've used ice and heat and Arnica gel. I've tried gentle Yoga stretches and bed rest. Finally I've resorted to some heavy medication to give me surcease. In a few days I hope to come back with far less time on my hands to write a poor-me post!

Inside the Mind Is An Interesting Place

My Sunday writing friend found a wonderfully written story about a child who tasted a bug and we used that as our prompt. Here's what resulted:

Often, while minding our own business

we are swallowed by a child

curious about how the world tastes

on a neophyte tongue,

only to be spit out when we wiggle,

impatient to be about adulthood,

too abrupt with our answers

to be taste-tested.

A pity. We might

learn a lot from a short sojourn

in the maw of an innocent,

might realize that, like a bug tasted,

we are spit out into a new world,

lucky to be wakened

from our self-important dreams.

A Different Point of View

You’d think, looking out across the vast expanse of snowy meadow that snow would be the great concealer, covering every sin of autumn. You would be wrong. Snow is, instead the great revealer, carrying on its surface the calligraphy of bird feet, the black dot trail of infinitesimal seed dispersal, the tracks of leaf travel refrozen in small puddles of melt. On its surface are scrawled the death stories of bloom and blossom, the life stories of mole and mouse, the travel journals of fox and coyote.

Snow reveals man’s impatience with weather where it is heaped, gravel-stained, along the roadsides and pushed impatiently back against the banks of pond ice. It recounts, in rounded belly and stony eyes, the story of a child at play and bears traces of snowshoe and ski with grace.

Nothing under the snow is unknown, only seen in another form. Boulders sleep under blankets, bushes huddle in imitation of sheet-draped parlor furniture, fence posts and tree branches become confections, frosted and glittering. You could speak of snow as the great concealer but you would be wrong. It merely puts the familiar in an unfamiliar light and reveals the minutiae of the normally unobserved.

 Thanks, Hilary!

Let Me Count the Ways

Love is like wind - you don't see it but you see its effects. I am reading to the Bean at nap time when she suddenly leans over the railing of her bed and hugs my head. I look up at her from my seat on the floor and her eyes are warm and sparkling and so moved by the winds of love that I nearly weep.

Tiny baby Lili stares at me as she drinks from her bottle and when I smile at her, she smiles back, her eyes lighting up as though someone has flipped a switch. Milk dribbles down both sides of her mouth but she doesn't care. We're in love with each other and that's better than milk.

I pull into their drive each week for my stint as Nini-in-charge and my son-in-law drops what he's doing to hurry out and help lug in my bags and boxes. My daughter waits at the door for a hug and a kiss. They make breakfast for me, fetch my special tea mug, make me feel as though I am the most special guest they've ever entertained.

The phone rings and it's my grandson wanting to Skype or my granddaughter wanting to tell me about her swim team or my son wanting to say he loves me or my daughter-in-law catching me up on family news. When I'm at their house I'm the center of attention. It's like being Queen For a Week and love sweeps through the rooms like a zephyr.

Every week there's the phone call from my distant daughter. Her laughter and mine get tangled in the phone lines until I'm sure everyone talking at the same time we are can hear it. She and her husband are professionals at picking out just the right cards for any occasion - I've saved them and whenever I feel blue I haul the box out and read through them. It's like opening a window so that love can blow through.

My oldest son in Oregon leaves "love you, Mom" messages in my email, on FaceBook, on the answering machine. He often tells me how he sends messages to me on the wind, knowing the jet stream will carry them eastward. When I feel a breeze on my cheek, I know it's him, thinking of me.

The mail arrives and there's a card or a letter with a "little something" tucked inside. My sisters never fail to anticipate my running short at the end of each month. I never do, of course, because of their thoughtfulness.

The winds of love are mighty, and they are always blowing.



photo borrowed from http://stock-clip.com/

Why I Don't Make New Year Resolutions Anymore

Out with the old, in with the new! It’s the January cry of merchants everywhere. Year-end clearance extravaganzas are being announced with manufactured jollity in newspapers, on television commercials, on the radio. So why not apply the same philosophy to people? Clear out a few old habits and issue in some new ones.

With resolve in hand I take a look around, deciding to start with my refrigerator where a couple of bad habits—ice cream and bacon—lay waiting for me to indulge (though not simultaneously). I take the ice cream out of the freezer. It’s coffee flavored, rich and creamy and slightly softened around the edges, just the way I like it. I carry the carton to the sink and lift the lid. I figure I’ll take one last taste, just one, before I throw the rest out. Waste, after all, is sin and sinning is a poor way to start out a new year. I grab the first spoon at hand (a serving spoon, as it turns out) and scoop some of the luscious stuff to my mouth. How can something so bad for you taste so good? One spoonful leads to another, of course, and in the end I don’t have to throw out any of the ice cream.

I go back to the fridge for the bacon. There are only a few strips left and I am gazing at them longingly when I spy the last two slices of bread sitting forlornly in their bag. Looking away quickly, my eye lands on a half-cut tomato and a leaf of lettuce poking invitingly out of the crisper. Waste not, want not, I chant, and moments later wash the ice cream down with a BLT.

Because this is the way I often cleaned out the refrigerator in my regretful past, I turn next to the closet where several garments that no longer fit hang in reproachful silence. One by one I take them off their hangers and stuff them into a bag destined for the Good Will bin. Halfway to the door, I have second thoughts. Now that I’ve given up fattening foods, these clothes just might fit again some day. I stash the bag in the back of the closet.

With that “Wow! What a good day!” feeling, I drag on my boots, pull on my mittens and set out for a brisk walk. From now on, I resolve, I will walk two miles every single day. I get as far as the driveway when the first sprinkle falls. Our predicted snow is obviously going to begin with rain. By the time I make it back to the house and pour myself a cup of hot chocolate decorated with a mound of freshly whipped cream, a mixture of sleet and snow is coming down in wind-driven gusts.

Isn’t that always the way? You make a few good resolutions and the weather or your conscience or some other thing you think you have control over leads you down the road of best intentions. It’s a good thing we’re given a whole year to practice our well-founded resolve.

A little gift to you all: For a splendid post on resolute wishes, see Friko's writing on the subject.