One of the sweetest gifts I received over the holidays was a painstaking, hours-long manual repair of my long-broken, mostly-dead blog. I had long given up on the idea of having this space to write poems, share recipes, express thoughts. But then my hubs had different ideas. Though not particularly technical, he took the time to learn and untangle everything that had gone wrong. He presented me with the fruits of his labor on Christmas Day.
It’s been almost two years since I wrote anything here. I’ve gotten rustier, older, busier. The boys have grown and changed. Perimenopause and it’s good friends creaky joints, cognitive decline, night sweats, and occasional bouts of depression have settled in.
In the world outside, things have become increasingly uncertain and scary. Everyone seems to be gnashing teeth, shouting positions, circling inevitable conflicts. Age, lack of practice, the state of the world all leave me feeling unsure of where to begin or what to say. Still–out of gratitude for this gift I’ve been given–I reckon it’s high time I say SOMETHING.
So I’ll begin with reflections on this day…the day we celebrate one of the few humans who always seemed to have the right words. Today we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King. Today–surrounded by friends and neighbors and my three best men–I sat in a theater, marched in the street, remembered that even in times of struggle and chaos and uncertainty and strife, there is goodness to be found, hands to hold, reasons to believe that better days are ahead. I was reminded “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” When feeling at a loss for how to feel or what to say…HOPE seems like a pretty good place to start.
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