Food for Thought: Marking the end of 2010

David's Snow Tulip

Tonight we will gather with good friends to share the end of one year and the beginning of another.  It's so arbitrary, isn't it?  Really, every moment in our lives is the end of one thing and the beginning of another, seamlessly and endlessly, until we die.  But that concept is too much for me to comprehend.  Artificial timeposts, like New Year's Day, are invested with such significance because those times symbolize the millions of beginnings and endings in our lives.  We can say at such times, "Now I can start over.  The slate is wiped clean and I can write whatever I want and this time I'm going write great things."

My resolution for the New Year is to try to live more in the present, to "waller" in it, as my friend David used to say.  I'm going to give up on perfection - or try to, at least - and just accept that I'm doing the best I can at any given moment.  My inspiration for this resolution is something that the poet Leonard Cohen wrote:

Ring the bells that still can ring. 

Forget your perfect offering. 

There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.

So love your family, love your friends, and love yourself.  It's all good.

Happy New Year.