N is for . . .

New season, new header, and the new outlook I'm trying to cultivate after a long, rather hard winter.  I feel like my family, some wonderful old companions, sweet blog friends, my cats, books, and my writing projects have kept me going.  Another gift is that this dreadful winter came on the heels of one of the best autumns of my life.  I believe that the seasons of plenty can prepare us for the lean seasons, and the lean ones make us appreciate those bountiful ones all the more.

Thank you from the soles of my harness boots to the roots of my highlights for all that you give, all that you share.  So often you do it without a single expectation of anything in return.  I've said more than once this winter that I was having a tough time, but then I haven't gone on to share any details or clarify my remarks.  That seems a bit unfair of me, and yet you haven't complained.  Not once.  That is because you are patient; you understand.  Some encounters, some moments, some life events--even the big ones that shape us in new and completely unforeseen ways--can't be shared, and yet it is good to know that there are friends who stop by for visits or send parcels or write unexpected emails just to check in.  

And then I see someone who is suffering, someone who is hungry or lonely or scared, and my own cares and worries seem petty.  Look at that roof over my head: not a leak in it tonight as the rain clamors against the skylight, searching for a way in.  The seal holds tight.  We are safe and warm inside.  Tomorrow I'll make soup with kale and white beans, and maybe some homemade biscuits.  My husband will tell me a joke and forget the punch line (this is not a vague prediction; I can say this with far more certainty than a meteorologist can forecast the weather).  Someone in my family will call just as I'm picking up the phone to call them.  I possess more riches than I can measure.

Usually I'm a vintage girl, a celebrator of thrift and reuse, a magpie and picker, gleaning treasures from cast offs and long-forgotten troves.  Tonight, though, I sing of the new, of turning the proverbial new leaf, of seeing the world through new, perhaps rosier glasses.  Yet even as I wax rhapsodic about the new, I keep in my sights the glimmer of the past, for it's from the old, wizened stem that a green branch grows, and from this branch a new bud blooms.