New Year’s Day is a pause for me. I lie on the sofa and watch movies and football. I let life happen outside of me and around me. Then yesterday I spent the entire day in action–restoring order after the holidays. Chopping wood, carrying water. Untangling Christmas lights. Two very different days, but two days I let slip through–catching nothing. Instead of an inner life, an outer life. Today, I’m hoping to restore order in my study; there are piles everywhere. I’m starting here.
At the end of each of the last few days, I’ve thought of the line from The Hours by Michael Cunningham:
“Laura reads the moment as it passes. Here it is, she thinks; there it goes. The page is about to turn.”
The last few days, nothing written on the page. Today, big hopes.
“It’s hard to tell somebody what you mean to say. And that’s an idea that I’m obsessed with. It’s why I write. It’s why everybody writes.”
--Jonathan Safran Foer
Yes, at the end of the day and all the life there what remains is:
And that’s the treasure and pleasure of our very daily life.
new years, that was a good day.