Happy New Year: An End to the Blogging Silence

A Story Remembered:

Years ago Kent and I spent a summer in Alaska.  For our anniversary we went to Glacier Bay someplace I have always wanted to see.  We got out on the first flight and so got there long before we could check in to our hotel.  So we stowed our bags, and walked down the street and went for a 'hike'.  We didn't have any water or food, but it was a short walk, through a beautiful shade forest, that ended along the banks of a river.  We sat for a few minutes and then I asked if Kent was hungry, do you want to go back now?  He replied no.  So we sat for a few more minutes and then I asked again.  He's answer remained the same.  After the third time I finally listened.  I stopped.  I stopped fretting about when we need to eat, go back, get water, etc. and simply enjoyed myself.  Its one of my favorite memories of that summer.  Nothing all that exciting happened but it was the simply joy of the moments that I remember.  We watched birds together and listen to Bald Eagles call to each other and land in trees directly over our heads.  Sometimes when I hike (my husband would say always), I often get obsessed with getting to 'the end'.  But I learned that day that sometimes the journey doesn't end when the trail does, sometime that is when the journey begins. 

A Story Untold:

Last year I wrote a kind of New Year's resolution/story.  A story of 2010.  I thought that if I wrote a New Years post I would have to review what 2010 was and was not.  As with all years of our lives 2010 was filled with many up and downs.  Some wonderful things and some not so wonderful things.  But I don't want to look back I want to look forward.  And while I WANT to loose weight (as everyone does this time of year), and read more, and watch less TV, and move out of my parents basement, my goal this year is to remember the story of the river.  To stop always worrying about what we are going to do next or what we need to do next, what to do for dinner, and when to put the kids to bed.  To enjoy the small moments as they happen.  I heard someone explain it as being present, with your whole self.

Funny as I write this I think I wrote something similar last year.  I guess some lessons take more time to master than others. Here's to a new year, with all the ups and downs and changes that it will inevitably bring.  I hope that it is a Happy one, one to remember not just for me but for all of you as well.