……..or at least, if you must, use your very best handwriting. The belfry is crowded with crazy bats, all flapping their wings and clamoring “pick me! pick me, anyone can see, I’m the most important thought in here, let me sit on your shoulder and twitter in your ear, ignore those others, they’re insignificant compared to mememeeeeee!” Welcome to the funny farm, that acreage between my ears.
Organizing my nice new calendar is a welcome respite from fending off those crazy critters. The pristine pages lying before me--what mysteries will unfold on them? What joys? What happiness? What sorrows and surprises? What silliness? What hurts? What misunderstandings? What laughter? What forgiveness? What love? Timidly I approach their vastness and their purity, pen in hand, hope in heart.
Carefully and neatly I transcribe all the mundane details, the fine print, of everyday life: birthdays, anniversaries, dental and doctor appointments, reminders of when this should be done, and that. And DRAT! I messed up in October, wrote all the November notes there instead. Scribbled them out, softly muttering obscenities under my breath. A bad omen? No. I prefer to think of it as human frailty. To mess up so soon? When I had hoped I could creep quietly, unnoticed, into this new terrain, and make a better job of it than last year. And carefully dot all my “i”s and cross all my “t”s, and watch my wayward tongue. My satchel is full of all the tools I’ll need: ideas, knitting needles, empathy, fabric, sewing machine, paints and brushes, smiles and kind words, wire for my jaws, an awe-inspiring new camera, compassion to replace the anger and impatience which got the upper hand too often last year; love for those who love me when they must sometimes wonder if it’s really worth the effort; and a little sprinkling of high-mindedness to help me love those people it’s easier to dislike.
I am going to be a better, braver, nobler, kinder person this year. Thus spake the hopeful one on January the fifth, two thousand and seven, even as the bats were flapping in her belfry. Wish her luck, as she does you, because, human frailty being what it is, we're going to need it. Happy New Year everyone.
6 comments:
Good Luck Molly!
Stay firm on your goal.
Then eat chocolate when all else fails.
We like you just the way you are.
Goodness me, Molly. What noble ambitions. Personally, I would really like just to be a thinner person. I have no real hope of being all those splendid things you're resolving.
Do keep blogging, whatever you do.
Nice thoughts Molly!
Yes, do keep blogging!
I dont know what to say about the rest...but I DO need all of them, but the wire for the jaws is the most urgent!
Kind words, my friends...and kindness works for me. The emphasis is on"ambition"Isabelle. The reality falls woefully short....but our reach must outdistance our grasp, else how will we achieve anything? The noble reachings and graspings should ,with a little luck and a bit of a tailwind, last at least through the end of January.....and then, as Aunty points out, there's always chocolate!
Ambition to be a better person is a fine resolve. Beautifully written.
January, oh January, pattern of hope indelible, the fade-proof optimism, the resolutions unshatterable, the calendar with its vast blanks and tidy jots forever and ever. January without end...
Molly, your raptures remind me of E. B. White's in "Once More to the Lake"("Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible...")and so I changed his words to fit.
Your buoyant spirits always nudge mine into buoying too.
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