My start to 2017
Last year, my New Year’s resolution was to learn how to cook. It all started out with a bang. My casserole dishes were filled with noodle bakes. My oven was chock-full of melt-in-your-mouth oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies. The whole escapade lasted about two weeks. Then, in mid-January, I found out I was expecting.
My 2016 resolution should have been to develop a new friendship with the take-out hostess of Tuk Tuk Thai. I spent fifty weeks of the year eating with plastic forks out of containers. But, the end result of my “takeout” year was more joyful than anything I had ever imagine. I might not have learned how to make a soufflé but I certainly learned how to change a diaper.
And now, it’s a new year. It’s another chance to begin again. It’s another opportunity to make restitutions for last year. It’s another beginning.
And I’m too darn busy to think about it.
But this morning, as I took my son for his first winter walk in the woods, I was reminded. After wrapping him like a baby burrito and strapping him to my chest, I headed into the backyard forest. There was a lot of snow on the ground and a lot of sunshine in the sky. It was quiet…real quiet. (The only noise was the crunch of the frozen ground under my boots.) I walked for a half hour, aimlessly wandering around the white jungle of tree branches and frozen streams.
There were no other tracks. No sign of any other human or creature. Just a whole lot of possibility.
Mother Nature had given me a clean slate for this new year. And, I started my imprint. I’m moving forward to 2017, carrying the goodness of 2016 with me but leaving the past behind.
And I may not know what lies ahead. But I certainly know that I have to go. This time, with a baby on board.
