Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Another Year


We drove out into the desert foothills of Tucson Mountain Park, in the area overlooking Avra Valley yesterday, to watch the sun setting on 2012. It had been a day of blue sky and fluffy white clouds that accentuated the inky dark fold lines of the mountains surrounding Tucson. By evening, the clouds turned gray and lavender and deep pink.

In the desert, with cold nipping at my jeans and gnawing on my hands, the old year faded majestically into the west. The sun dipped in and out of cloud banks whose edges flamed with the intensity of the departing year.

Here we go. Another year is upon us like another birthday. Ed always says that a birthday is just another day, and yet, it is so much more.

The new year is like the center line of the highway. It disciplines us. We know when to cross and when to stay on the advancing side. The year frames our comings and goings. This year will take us places we have never been and it will return us to the old and comfortable, maybe even to home.

I have made several resolutions, not necessarily for the new year. I have been eating less and feeling better. That I will continue to do. I want to hone in on the social injustice of violence in our society and learn more about how guns feed that violence.

And, I'm thinking that I will try to get in a round of golf in every month of 2013. If there is one thing that I have learned in the last few years, it is the value of play, even if that play means chasing little white balls.

Happy New Year, from under the Willow that shades us all.

Copyright 2012
Wanda Hayes Eichler






No comments:

Post a Comment