New Beginning

Where have the days went? I feel I have been swallowed into time’s vortex and spit out at the foot of this new summit, 2010. Good riddance 2009; goodbye forever. I have tucked you into a dark corner of my memory where time will turn you into dust. I have thrown you into the wind, let you sink to the bottom of the ocean, left you in Laguna Beach to dance in the echoes of the past.

This New Year marks a New Beginning. I feel I should write something inspired, inspiring, about moving forward, resolutions, goals, hopes and dreams. After all, here we are, in a beautiful new home in the foothills of the glorious Trabuco Canyon, starting anew. But the truth is, I don’t want to await the future, anticipating salvation, absolution, or even enlightenment. I want to subscribe to the premise that this flawed perfection, this now, is sufficient and complete in every single, ineffable moment. Because it is. After the dark days of cancer and the turbulent waters of its wake, I finally feel my world slowing, settling. I am back to my breath. And I breathe in now, sitting here on this wooden bench overlooking the pasture, grazing horses, and a sunset so magnificent I think I hear it singing. Oh how I am blessed.

I bask in the quiet. It is so quiet here. The quiet is thick; it’s tangible, heavy, sweet. It is the pause at the end of an exhale, the stillness in between in between. The roots of the deepest things that shape our lives live here, I am certain. Under this bench, beneath these fallen leaves, inside the silence that envelopes me now. We spend a lifetime slowly gaining grain after grain of this wisdom. We grasp and search, wanting more. We turn the calendar and resolve to reach new goals. We take years of living trying to understand what is already here. It is here; it’s already written.

I am not suggesting we stop striving. Keep creating. Keep growing. Just know that there will always be more to want. And perhaps we will never be satiated. Each new year will bring new resolutions and new challenges and life will always be hard. This year, dare to be present in this flawed perfection, this now. Every day is a new beginning. Watch how the moon goes down into the night. Open your eyes. Gaze at the stars. Open your nostrils. Smell leaves. Sink into the quiet and let life happen. It is going to be a great year.