New Year's Eve

On the last day of the year, do you look back, or look forward? Do you count down with a sigh of relief? With a twinge of hope?

As you know, on New Year's Eve, I don't count down, I don't stay up, I don't do anything that's very glitzy or celebratory.

But I take care of my world.

And so today, from the minute I get up until significantly past noon, I scrub the farmhouse. This is no ordinary house cleaning, but rather the Japanese style "everything must sparkle" cleaning (I read that the Japanese welcome the new year with a clean house and a clear head). The take apart drains and soak the shower curtain type cleaning.

I pause only to glance outside as I pass a window.

But during those furtive glances onto a rather monochromatic landscape, I get fleeting images that make me smile. A cardinal, so vibrant in its redness that I think it must be an illusion, a trick of the mind. A deer who stares at me until I move just a little too quickly...






The cheepers: they hike over to the garage for the first time in weeks (as watched through the porch screen)...





A possum who seems to be hovering near the garage, but maybe not, maybe he'll move on, maybe we wont quite have to remove him to some distant place.


None of these images are unusual at the farmette and yet they make me feel like I have buddies in my world. We are not alone here. We have company all around us.


"Breakfast" is too late to even call "lunch" and yet I bring out the usual morning foods for me and Ed eats his leftovers and it is a fine meal because it signals a fresh house and therefore a fresh start of sorts. New Year -- we're ready for you!






In the afternoon, the skies clear -- I mean really clear! -- and Ed and I go out for a walk. Not a huge walk -- just to our local county park.






It's a brilliant walk for its quiet, understated elegance.






We commemorate it.






Ah, the colors of December on a sunny day!





They give you hope.

Hope: such a malleable idea! It flexes to your circumstances. So may I wish you plenty of it?

We end the evening with a supper of... scrambled eggs, leftover veggies with potato and... lobster tails! The 4 oz ones that kind of look like enlarged shrimp on your plate, but still! Delicious!






I open a bottle of Catalan Cava -- the poor person's champagne to the idle observer, but a real nostalgia treat for me, who remembers all too well Catalan evenings on our way to Sorede...

We have memories, we have hope. That's as sure as anything. May you have plenty of beautiful moments in 2017. Ones that create the best memories.

To your New Year.

With love.