The world is getting a little brighter. Have you noticed? Bit by bit, a few minutes of daylight have been added. Even the average temperature is warming up.
I wonder whose idea it was to start a new year in the “bleak mid-winter.” For that matter, midnight is a strange time to start a new day, too. How odd that new beginnings sneak up on us in the dark while we sleep.
Everything is a bit off this year. Even the name 2009 is rather ugly. I never have liked my “nine” years. I was happier being 30 than 29 and happier still at 40 than 39. (Surprisingly, I’m happier now than I was at 40, and I’m in another nine year right now. Ugh!)
The “nine” years always seem like holding patterns. 2009 is stuck between the whacky excitement of ’08 and next year when we can start saying “twenty-ten.”
Tell the truth. Haven’t you felt out of sorts ever since we gave up the 1990s and had to start saying the “Ohs”? ’Oh-one was particularly bad, and the economy won’t put ’08 on anybody’s best-year list, although some very good things did happen last year. I’m looking forward to 2010, 2011, etc.
Am I alone, or did the end of 2008 seem to go out under a cloak of darkness? It’s as though we were moving forward, but cautiously with one hand over our eyes, lest we look too closely at what we can’t change. In that posture, it’s hard to stride purposefully.
I had a friend over for lunch the other day, just to catch up. She shared with me some of the trials they faced at the end of 2008, not the least of which was the death of their dear family dog. The story had a happy ending when a new rescue dog filled the void.
I got to meet the new dog this week. He has the most beautiful auburn coat I’ve ever seen on someone standing under one-foot tall, and such enthusiasm! Abandoned, adopted, loved – his life has come full circle back to joy.
“He’s the glue that’s holding our family together,” my friend said. He looked like he was born to the role.
I’m a positive person with the added twist that I like to know all the gory, depressing details. Non-fiction writers and newspaper columnists survive because of people like me.
I know things will get better, because I always know how bad they are. I’ve lived through enough “nine” years to have seen more than a few up-and-down—and-up-again cycles.
At the end of last year, with one president-in-waiting and another in hiding, with snow falling on snow upon snow, with power outages and trips cancelled, with most of us counting our change and ignoring our 401(k)s, we were doing some rapid-fire cycling.
Fortunately, good times have been wedged firmly between tough ones. We got time to read, take out the cross-country skis, gather around with those we love the most and remember what matters.
In one of those down cycles, I found myself standing in the powerless T&C market on Christmas Eve morning. Next to the covered fish counter, I watched other islanders trying to cope with the blocked and darkened aisles.
My tall, talented friend stood with his cart next to me.
“We’re not very good at dealing with hardships,” I said to him.
“No, we’re not,” he said. “And this isn’t it.”
He was right. Surrounded by all that abundance, a power outage was an annoyance, an inconvenience.
And, maybe I was wrong. Looking back at some of the real trials my friends have weathered this past year, I have to say we’re actually good, graceful and strong in the face of hardships.
Some of us have gathered around friends who have lost loved ones or jobs. We’re reordering our lives and our priorities. We’re making things be better.
We almost have a new president. I have friends who have been wearing watches that count down the days until January 20th, like eight years of waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square.
We’re about to see a new beginning. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s coming at a time that’s looking very dark in so many ways.
We won’t know for months or even years what wonderful things are waiting for us to shine some light their way.
Walk softly and carry a big lantern.
Eve Leonard is an island writer and real estate agent.
