When the weather goes from cold and snowy to warm and rainy, the air becomes thick with moisture as though the clouds have dropped to the ground.
Walking through the mysterious murk, we heard voices before we could see their source. Dogs popped in and out of the grounded clouds.
Last January, I claimed the word “focus” as my New Year’s vow, and some things are sharper today than they were back then. Yet I’m viewing the year ahead through a soft-focus lens. The changes and events to come are as foggy as these woods. I’m okay with that uncertainty.
If I learned anything from my year of increased focus, it was that the best, most memorable experiences came when I just let them, when I stayed in the moment and swayed with the wind of life rather than fighting it. My trip to Morocco is but one example.
Of all the New Year posts and articles I’ve read these past weeks, it is Dominique Browning’s words that I keep repeating over and over in my mind. She was recounting her year, “It was a big year. But every year is a big year,” she wrote. And then she said,
Every day is a big day. That is what we realize when we are older. That we are lucky enough—and that is all it is, plain dumb luck—to be here makes it a big day, a big year.
So maybe my “resolution” this year—if you want to call it that—is to celebrate my life and luck every day. I’m going to burnish my love for my family and friends until it is a beacon they will return to over and over again. I’ll make every day a big day.
Very nice. When I first saw your title “Grounded Clouds,” I pictured the Great Cloud Mother in the sky with a hand on one hip shaking a finger and saying to the little clouds, “OK, that’s it! You’re grounded!”