Louisville
I hope 2007 will be a year of everyday bliss and small comforts. I’m not wishing for big miracles, although it would be fine to find out that a publisher’s been waiting for a book exactly like the one I’m writing.
No, instead, as I sweep the dust from 2006 out the door and welcome the new year, I’m wishing for the ordinary comforts of a life lived graciously.
I want time to make full dinners, hot and fresh when my daughter walks through the door, even when we both have been working all day. I want time to learn to make new dishes with her, side by side in the kitchen, chopping garlic and onions together and crushing herbs with our mortar and pestle. I want soft, soothing words to emanate in our home, feathering the walls with warmth as we read by a cozy fire, and worries to fly up the chimney with the wood smoke.
I want my children to continue their trek to autonomy, and I want them to know that I support and love them not only when they achieve the things everybody notices – awards and diplomas – but also when they rest or wander. I want them to know that I love them when they make mistakes, and that I accept them when they reject my ideals in order to create their own.
The other day, four children came to my house for sweet cocoa and conversation. We sat near the woodstove and talked about the elements of life – earth, air, water and fire – and each of them had distinct ideas about what these elements meant and could do, how they fit together. I want 2007 to be a year of listening consciously to the imaginative ideas of other people’s children, really listening, the way my grandmothers once listened to me.
I want 2007 to be the year that I treat my family as kindly and respectfully every day as I treat strangers, remembering to appreciate all they do and remembering that none of us is perfect, and all are works in progress. Lived this way, every day could have moments that I would be glad to live again.
I want my old lovers to remain good friends, so that the love still shared and the ecstasy once felt will become the foundation for a deepened kind of friendship, the kind felt in the hearts of folks who know both the depth of their intimacy and the length of their own limitations. I want to welcome the crinkles appearing at the edges of my eyes and the silvering of my brown hair, signs of maturity to embrace and not to alter.
These wishes don’t eliminate suffering, or need, or want. I don’t want to live a complacent life, free of trouble. Learning can come from struggle. Instead, I want to be able to transform all the challenges in this lifetime into strength or knowledge I can use.
I might not be able to bring peace on earth, but I can choose to use peaceful language in my home. I might not be able to stop another person from dying, but I can bring lotion to rub into tired feet. I might not be able to write the greatest book ever known, but I have stories to tell, and the ability to listen when others share their stories.
So, if I had a wish that I could give, I’d give this one: May the new year become a year of small comforts and kindnesses, love sprinkled into everyday existence to sweeten the flavor of life in 2007.
Kiesa Kay (kiesa@oleandercottage.com) recently founded Oleander Cottage, a writing retreat in the south of France, and has edited two educational anthologies.
