on the eve of a new year

Here we are.  You and I.  Computer screen + me.  I didn't think we would do this again, make a blog together.  Honestly, I have missed you . . . I have missed us.  It's New Year's Eve and I have been thinking a lot about what has happened in my life this year, but I don't want to really go into any of that.  Not right now.  Maybe not ever.  What I really want to do this very moment is add fuel to the tiny little embers that are delicately burning in my being.  I long to create . . . to share . . . to connect . . . We can do this again.  The fact that I am sitting here with you typing words across your face is testament that I will move into the year 2017 running.  I have to.  I need to.  No more excuses.  No more wishing.  I keep hearing these words repeat themselves over and over in my mind . . . 

. . . be the change . . . 

And of course, a great drama would not be the same without a line from Shakespeare.

This above all: to thine own self be true . . .

I do not want to become a cliché, despite the fact that I do have a soft spot for overused quotes.  I want to be an example.  My daughter is my greatest audience.  What lessons can I teach her just by speaking?  Perhaps some words will stick, but it's what I do that will have a lasting impression on her young mind.  Live authentically.  Love unconditionally.  These are the lessons I want her to learn.  These are lessons to which I am still a student of.  But we will learn them together, she and I.  And perhaps by doing so, we will add a bit of whimsy and beauty back into the world.  That is my hope and my prayer.    

My booklist going into 2017:

- Love Does, by Bob Goff

- Drawn:  The Art of Ascent, by Jeremy Collins

- Desert Solitaire:  A Season in the Wilderness, by Edward Abbey

- The 52 Lists Project:  A Year of Weekly Journaling Inspiration, by Moorea Seal

- a leather bound journal for poems I wish to write

I may not know exactly where I'm headed, 

but I can tell you that as long as I keep moving

 one foot forward in front of the other, 

I'm going somewhere. 

I know the journey will see me through some rough roads, 

but I'm not afraid because I am always rewarded 

with scenery that will take my breath away. 

I will forge friendships with amazing characters 

because we were never meant to walk alone. 

This is the story I choose to live . . . 

the one where the girl followed her heart 

and in doing so wrote one amazing tale!

-k.