I feel as though I need to be more intentional about writing this year.  So I will begin as I intend to continue – and write each day.

This was a wonderful, bittersweet holiday break.  I went on break a week before my daughters and they will continue for another week, watching endless episodes of How I Met Your Mother and working at Winter Camp at Circus.  This is all good. We have gathered as family, sung carols with neighbors, exchanged lovely gifts, cooked food together, and enjoyed glasses of wine.  We contemplated the variations on the latke (with jalepeños? spiced like a samosa?) and created black eyed peas simmered with smoked turkey neck instead of ham hocks. We lit a candle for Mom at every event, shared tea, scotch, cookies, and laughter with her.  It was as it should be.

But in truth I am not ready to return to work on Tuesday.

It has been a lovely two weeks.  I worry that I am not able to get to my RSS reader, not able to plow through the piles of paper that need sorting to file or recycle. I worry that I sleep too late.  I worry that I won’t have the patience for my students that they so clearly need.

I have yet to really begin reading the piles of short stories that my students wrote. I don’t know how I will do all the reading that I must do.

But what I do know is that I have wonderful friends, both old and new, that my children are healthy and so very alive and lively, that I will learn some new things this year, that I love deeply and am loved in return, and that I have faith in me and those that surround me, and it will sustain me.

Happiest of new years to all of you. Who knows what our days will bring us? All we can know is what we will bring to the day.

Love. Always.

photo of sunrise over Lake Michigan by rottnapples