'tis

the end of another season

I was writing for you at Christmas but I couldn’t get to post it. I couldn’t make the cookies either because my arms are like tiny, short dinosaur arms. I am healing them. I go for runs, very short ones. I go to help my spine feel itself. I go so my spine can signal to my arms, that this is their sign to keep going. This is the time to gently increase the momentum.

I am driving up north today. I will be driving to see friends, leaving the family members behind so I can be with those that also send smiles across my face and into my heart. I am not cooking because I can let someone else do that today. I am not baking because, tiny dinosaur arms are coming with me.

‘Tis the season to review and remind ourselves of what we did and didn’t too. I am borrowing from Jewish tradition, which isn’t my own, but which I like: I am going to say I’m sorry to all I might have wronged.

I’m sorry dear reader-friend. I regret the times I let the doom scroll win instead of the typing. I apologize for whatever I did wrong to you. Now, let’s move into the new!

‘Tis the season to blend your love into an elixir! It’s time to mix up your sense of what feeds you body and soul. It’s time to say dear Universe, this is my day to write and re-write my part of your huge story.

It’s yours, this day. It’s like others but uniquely your own, too. ‘Tis the season to mix up your love and to throw out your regrets. It’s your time to move into the next chapter that we live together, not as one exactly but side-by-side. It makes me wish things were different. It makes me wish we could all be together all the time because I hate how fast it all moves. The only choice is to keep up.

You never get everything you want. It can be harder even to get what you need. What to do?

Listen to your music. Look out at the birds. Scrape a little ice from the window or wherever it has gathered. Remember that it all passes, from season to season in these most tiny of moments. Savor this. Feel all that between your teeth. Drink a drink of tea or spirits and let it wash into you: novelty, opportunity, inspiration.

This new beginning will pass so we have to embrace it.

What are you going to do with this moment as we enter a new year? Make it a fairytale. Make it epic. Make it up in tiny ways but decide on it today. Decide on the feeling if not all the details. Decide to consume sunlight like a plant. Hydrate like a clam. Embrace the silliest of visions until it feels like another part of this thing we call reality. Filter away that which isn’t useful to you. Trim the fat of the past and get to what will empower you.

Life is one DIY recipe after the other. New beginnings are yours to spice and to sweeten. We talked about spice and we’ve thought about joy together. What else can we do in 2025?

I’m here for you despite wanting to run away sometimes when I think I’m failing you the way I have failed in so many parts of my life.

But we aren’t giving up. Not yet.

15 or 85, ‘tis the season to dream. ‘Tis the season to revise the emotional, situational menu. It’s time to let the forgotten inside us, the invisible items in us, rise up. No, we’re not bread, not quite a dough to bake, but we are full of the tiniest, most willing cells. Let’s feed them that joy and that sense of gratitude we grew in 2024, and let’s add in that sense of surprise, adventure and the power of our attention. Let’s make 2025 the year that no one, not even us, saw coming. Let’s make it as positive as a Tom Hanks movie. Let’s make it as delightful as we can possibly imagine, and then add that extra dash that is your secret ingredient. You are the secret spice my friends. Each of you, and even me. Failure and the future success of our lives are deeply intertwined.

Photo by Alex Conradt on Unsplash

Up the New York State Thruway I go! I’ll report back from our simple feast. I hear from the chef there will be dumplings. YUM. (Tiny arms clapping)

Love you dear Kneaders. More than I can type.

Please share with friends :)

FREE LINKS

Crab and Artichoke Dip from the NYTIMES

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Hasselback potatoes for those of you who celebrate starch and vegetarian options.

Ready to read about someone else’s best meals of 2024?