to be or not to be

I’m sitting at our kitchen table, our Christmas tree still glowing behind me. We keep the Christmas tidings rolling past December 25 in this household. It’s the New Year: 2017. We made it. I get the sense that we collectively stopped holding our breaths when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve. And then maybe collected a whole new deep breath into our lungs. There are many mysteries ahead for this year, but it feels momentous to have finally turned the calendar forward from 2016. As my grandfather said, “It’s time to stop staring down our noses at it and face it head on.”

I’ve never much been one for New Year’s Resolutions. We shouldn’t need the prompting of a new year to address changes we want to make in our lives or find inspiration to try something new. But I still find myself reflecting on what this next year may bring, and what I would like to bring to it. Goals such as extending graciousness further into the world; inviting more freewheeling contemplation; distracting myself less with phone/TV/computer screens.

Opening our front window curtains more frequently.

Picking up the ukulele again.

Calling friends instead of simply texting or offering digital thumbs up on their Instagram photos.

I heard suggested on a TV show the other day that Hamlet’s tormented “to be, or not to be?” is the wrong question. Almost nothing operates between just two stark options. And I’m fairly certain our resolutions and expectations going into a new year shouldn’t be black and white either. So if anything, let’s all allow for a little nuance, a lot of forgiveness, and as much understanding of the wide and messy variety of grays as possible.

We’ve got this, my dear ones.

And because we had a lovely little New Year’s Eve celebration with friends, I offer you these cell phone photos from our evening out.