I’m sitting here in the early morning, sipping coffee and watching the pale sunlight reflect across the water, illuminating the island across on the other side with water colors.  How frikkin’ poetic is that??

Anyway, of course my mind starts to wander (can’t stay in the moment can we?) and I begin to reflect on the new year to begin at midnight and the old one that ends.  I jumped the gun a bit and already replaced my kitchen calendar with the new one that I had purchased a few weeks ago and have been anxious to open. (how sad is that?!).  As I took the old one down I found myself saying “goodbye” to 2011 and wondering if we should make some ritual of the transition.  Perhaps we should burn the old one in protest?  But the pictures are so beautiful I’m not sure I can bring myself to do it.  I started to scan through them again, reminiscing (I’m always so proud of myself when I spell that word correctly the first time without seeing the inevitable red squiggly line indicating that I’m a spelling moron!).  January, February, March, April, May.  May.  May 23rd to be exact.  “Victoria Day” in British Columbia.  I wonder how they celebrate it.  I sure went out with a bang!  One day changes the whole gig.

Back to the whole new year thing.  I’ve been thinking off and on lately about what it is about the new year:  why is it that when we have a pretty rotten year we look forward to the new year as if magically, on that first day, we can say goodbye to the rottenness of the previous year and hello to a fresh new start? What makes life any different going from one day to the next?  It is just another day in time.

Time.  The clock is ticking and with each tick about 1/3 of a second passes (it ticks fast!).  Time passes.  Time also marches on.  It sometimes races although it has been known to stand still.  It waits for no man (or woman).  For some people, time is money. (Ben Franklin)  It (unfortunately) brings all things to pass. (AESCHYLUS)

Wow!  That’s a crowd pleaser! (BTW: “pleaser” was not in my blogger dictionary. Interesting…)  The reality is that we don’t seem to be able to help ourselves.  Perhaps it is intrinsic in the term “new” that we feel optimism, if only for  a day.  Soon enough it becomes painfully apparent that the “old” year is still trailing us like toilet paper stuck to our shoes.  But for now…happy new year.