The meaning of the arrival of this new year has sunk in for me finally today, January 4, 2023.
It was four days into the year this time, and it is therefore all-the-more a welcome experience to my psyche. It was only this late I suppose because I was working New Year’s Day and have worked each day till today. Since I woke up on New Year’s Day I have been busy, and on top of that, outside it has been wet and warm and foggy. Now today (literally) I woke from from my sleep and that ole Mississippi coast dense fog had lifted and the cooler, crisper air had returned.
So I went for a late afternoon stroll to the beach and let the clean, salt air clear my mind as it rushed into my lungs. I breathed out and gazed long over the water toward Cat Island as the big blue world whispered it’s deep, rich beauty to my mind and memory once again. Not every day is this clear, so when this comes it is a blessing.
Then I sat on the sand and rested, read a passage from the book I had with me, then I put the book down and looked around. I shared this pic and some loosely associated thoughts with my twin brother via iMessage. (We do that sometimes… often, in fact. ) Then I prayed. My mind wandered. And my covered feet hugged the thick, dry, shifting sands of this good earth as I walked toward the sunset.
Each January just such a ‘mental shift’ happens to me that lets me know that in spite of life’s difficulties I have much to anticipate in the year ahead. Particularly, I can anticipate common, ordinary moments of meaning and joy. I can expect to be in the presence of the Father through the Son’s faith. And I can do this while attend to minutiae dutifully and (I hope) patiently. As my birthday comes later this month, too, I always get a bit more reflective than usual. So my restful anticipation comes surrounded by gratitude and, not surprisingly, thoughts of aging. And in a very real sense, I look forward to it. I anticipate more and more life.
I was glad to be out in the gentle winds of a new day today, which is my day off. The fresh breeze brought about this all-necessary 2023 mind-shift. Another kind of shift, shift work at the hospital, was complete for a few days, and now having come to the beach in the sunlight, knowing I had looked long and gazed admiringly at the world from the standpoint of my own limited perspective, I turned back toward home and found myself saying, “Thanks for this moment, God. Let me take it with me to my home and share it with others wherever I go.”
Happy New Year!