In the winter at 5:00 pm, the emptiness is the worst. I feel a lonely draft in the corner of my heart. What I am missing, what is it I want, what makes me so sad?

Is it the gray and steady flatness of the sky and trees and field? Or the way the windows in the houses glow, while wood smoke and stars surround me?

Is it the way I feel dull and exhausted, even with Matt Damon and kettle corn and couch?

Is it the voice in my head, ever yelling and telling me I’m not half the woman I could be if only, just once, I’d get it right, I’d do it right, I’d stop being lazy?

Sometimes the world disappoints us; what it gathers around, what it gives back, what it does to hearts and minds and souls. Oh so far beyond disappointed, in the terrifying way we dismiss, diminish, marginalize, bully, cast out. The way we are poisoned by words and water and false and ugly prophet. The way we are harshly judged, and judge others, and judge ourselves. The way we drift through time, alone. And drift through space, without.

Sometimes the strip of blue sky at the end of a long winter day, caught between orange and steel, just isn’t enough. And as it narrows and lamps turn on, and TV’s too, and cars pull up to eat nachos and watch concussions and cheer for patriotism, I am sad.

Sometimes the world turns away, before it comes back again. In the dying light we see the weight of shadow, and feel the coming of the night.

Frozen grass, like the surface of a dead moon, stretches out across the field.
There’s still time before the planet dies white
But nothing can be planted
And nothing can be reaped

By standing in the groundswell of summer, with the heaves and hills
Left by tractors and time
Or in the sheltered berm
Where all the leaves are braced.

You’ve walked here before, you know every knoll and knot
All the twists you’ve wound around;
Where you landed first,
Where you fell.

And each rutted footstep marks where you used to stand
But you don’t quite fit now
In this unforgiving landscape
In this unyielding shape

Still, there’s a trail; a solid, hardened, toughened path
As proof of life
Like a wrinkle on the face of
Every early morning walk

Oh change, don’t obliterate my world!
And fall across the earth I’ve come to know
Leaving me snow blind and deep, where
Even the fence posts at the edge of space are buried!

Hold fast to gravity all that’s fixed and firm —
Infertile, yes,
But settled and solid
And set in stone!

Untether me from this frozen ground, where all my history traipses,
And I may melt into rivers and rains
And pour across the landscape
In a flood of the unknown.

They tell me spring will come and that others wait to welcome me
But first, you erase it all
and I’m left in the wild white
of change.

I don’t want to have a nice day.
I want to have a remarkable day, a passionate day
A life-changing day!

A day where paint flies like clouds across the bluest canvas
And I write a symphony
And a conversation with a refugee teaches me something entirely new.

These ordinary moments of bread and salt
Of snow and boot
Of curling dog and sun —

Help me to notice these
The way that I notice what’s missing;

Because I may not be curled under the covers in love
Or on a boat in the Pacific Ocean
Or wandering the streets of India seeking higher ground

I may not be planting a community garden in the city
Or building houses with Jimmy Carter
Or standing in a field while a thunderstorm brews

But I’m here;
Impossibly, remarkably,
Ordinarily
Here!

Wherever I am let it be new;
Won’t that change the world as well?

I woke with a Tum fused to my face and a flutter of anxiety about the day. How am I to welcome this new year when I’m (literally) glued to the old? That’s the thing about fresh starts. They rarely are.

Some things seem to stick around forever even thought you don’t want them to, like a cigarette craving, the Stanely Steemer jingle, and last night’s pizza box. And some things leave way before you are ready, like summer, Jon Stewart, your father. And then there are those things we desperately need to let go of but can’t. We clench and clutch and fuse ourselves like labels to glass. Or like a wet Tum to a cheek, apparently (sidebar: I have no idea how that happened and does anyone know if “Tum” is the singular of “Tums”?).

I’ve been letting go for some time now, leaving behind more and more, and having less and less, and of course, finding the space to become. From the outside, the trajectory may seem dramatically downward. I once had houses with nannies, and executive titles, and antiques by the seashore. I had attics full, and closets full, and dinner parties full of stemware and tiny forks. I had my hair styled, my cars detailed, my house cleaned. I had pedicures.

Today I am considering saving up for a PedEgg. I’ve moved from corporate life to creative strife; from a home by the sea, to an apartment near a pond. And while there are hard times, it turns out I love living more simply.

But In full disclosure, my arrival here has been more of a peeling away than an intentional act of letting go. It was a painful process; in most cases I was letting go one stubborn layer at a time, and I had skilled help to do it. Sure there were moments when massive, dramatic shifts would happen and I’d separate from something like a berg from a floe, but mostly my new life emerged slowly from the shape of the old. It seems I needed something new and solid to hold onto before I could let go entirely. These were the transitions and changes that really stuck. These were the resolutions that lasted.

So maybe new beginnings aren’t just about letting go, but also reaching out. Building a little bridge from what we’ve known to the great unknown. As I scrape the assorted fruit dust from my cheek, I laugh. Maybe I’m being reminded that I am made of both the old and the new; maybe I stand here this morning fused to the moment between the burn, and the heart. Maybe the new year comes bloated with the old; but also, maybe it comes with a bridge.

When the year ends, and the lights go out and the tree has been dragged to the yard; when the view from the window is gray, and the silence is white;

And someone posts a picture of two perfectly poached eggs posed on a well-mannered plate; and someone else shares a jaw-dropping masterpiece she just finished painting;

Where will your gaze go, now?

This year may you cheer for the perfect eggs and the artist, alike – though neither belongs to you. May the joy of the world feed you and inspire you. May you walk toward what you love, and place yourself among the blessed.

This morning the sun was pouring through the bedroom window, shining through the little row of crystals hung and perched on the sill – I woke to rainbows on every wall, and in stripes across the ceiling and in northern-light-swirls across my floors. It was blindingly beautiful. I woke to a world where anything is possible, and felt entirely grateful for the peaceful joy, for the unexpected moment of dreamy clarity. This is a sign, surely!! This New Year will be THE ONE!!

And then I left my bedroom and smelled something so horrific I wanted to hurl myself out the door and sprint down the street never to return. Relocating was the only reasonable option. Seems Gilligan had a rather astounding stomach issue ALL over my house while I lay curled in a rainbow.

Seriously, New Year? I gag my way through the morning clean up, opening windows (yes, it was that bad), rolling up rugs, washing towels. I slice a lemon to help clean the air and consider sticking a few slices up my nose. I light a candle or twenty and alternately worry over the little guy and wonder why the hell I ever agreed to get a dog.

What a dramatic shift that was – to walk over a simple threshold and find reality so entirely altered. Which should I hold onto? Which will shape my day?

Well, shit happens, and always will. And really, the more I wake up, the more I see that all that’s glorious has already spilled in pools of light across my world. So I think I’ll let each moment have it’s due – on either side of the threshold, I choose to be alive

Soon comes the reckoning –
You’ve pushed it off as long as you can
You’ve had your cocktails 
And long winter naps 
And you’ve read your books
And binged your shows 
And you’ve swallowed whole tins of cookies and cakes
And now you stand with your hands over your eyes
Like a monkey emoji

Before tomorrow even comes 
The weight of it is heavy 
The days just grim numbers like your bank account
Like your weight
Like the number of hours in the day 
Like another year done and gone

Maybe you can skip it altogether with 
A countdown to summer, 
Or spring vacation,
Or a box of tissues and a tight grip on what you’ve already lost

Lets burn it all down; all our fears about what may come
All our grief about what we’ve left behind;
Put it in huge piles made of cartons and boxes and bills
Of wrappings and trappings and glitter 
Let’s gather in circles around great fires
Made of old regret and worn out decision

Let’s decide to love this life 
Wholeheartedly 
And engulf our worry in the
Heat of right now;

There is nowhere to hide in the open field
The only thing that will withstand the burn
Is the sky full of stars
And a heart full of wonder.

We’ll let the sparks climb up the darkness
In clusters and alone
Lifting us off the dread and debris,
And leading our gaze 
Somewhere new.

I wake early, with a smile of anticipation. I turn on all the window candles and the Christmas lights here and there around tables and trees and corners. In the fog and gloom of the morning, the blurred stars are shining.

I wonder what’s coming when they arrive; who will be in a good mood. Who will not. I hope they won’t be disappointed. I hope we laugh a lot.

I am full of wonder and hope, like a child again, except for that fractured belief.

This Christmas, I want only one thing: to hold compassion and let go of expectation, so that I can be in the presence of the love that’s come bearing gifts.