Late for 08 but 09 will be FINE!

Where to begin? I was doing alright with this blog posting thing until the election in November: I was a poll watcher for the League of Women Voters here and just got completely swept up with that and then holiday-year end frenzy and so now here's my final 08 post horning in on what should rightfully be my primal entry for 09! Oh well I think this new year is going to be all about sharing anyway so seems somewhat apropos.

I'll post my election final report and also the final report from the Nashville LWV but more importantly here's the poem I wrote in honor of that GREAT DAY!

The Day Before

I found it on the ground a little worn

and not quite round

it looked like a piece of soap

it couldn’t make a single sound

but then I recognized it and picked it up and handling it

I thought that maybe rubbing it

would make it warm and animate

but this was November third 2008

the miracle had not happened yet

so this cleansing bit of hope

was still a curled up fiddlehead

still furled gestating like an egg

waiting for the fourth to burst forth

like apples and oranges in

Carmen Miranda’s headdress

like sun’s truth and moon’s tenderness

their light combined to slice apart

the darkened tent in which we’ve huddled

wrapped in words like “no” and “never “

our eyes rolled back in fear fever.

That fourth day came I walked into a park

and tossed that egg,

a shriven old man’s ear,

cracked open in the air

weeping seeds inches deep

and made me smile a hopeful smile.

Now we see things as they are.

We’re awake and walking upright

and the only time we won’t see the sun or the moon

is when we choose to blink and when we choose to sleep.

I was euphoric for weeks afterward; euphoric with relief that we were all awake again. Truly I felt - like many of you also said - restored to the other Americans who finally realized that they could no longer vote for people like W. and McCain and Palin and then hope for the best. Finally we all agreed that asses were indeed asses, heinies, buttocks of the first order!

Enough of that - that's old news: Hey 2008! Don't the let the door hit cha' where the dog shoulda' lunched!

2009 - so fine, sublime, the ringing chime of a new order - of intelligence and hope and energy and diligence and all things authentic!

I love the synapse of endings and beginnings - in these tidal thresholds I realize (again and again) how of a piece are great joy and sadness. This year's end has been tough on some friends and I mourn with them the people and days who have passed or merely aged. Yet I cannot help but be excited for the future: the big future for us all and my own personal future in this new place in the grande moyenne which has welcomed and embraced me and Michael like a deliciously eccentric and long unknown relative - smelling of lavender and really good bourbon, her Ascot hat feathers tickling my nose as she presents me 'round to all the most interesting people and places in this place full of people and places who are wildly, weirdly different from anywhere I've ever been.

Normally I'm full of resolutions for a new year's initiation - this year, oddly not. I'm not avoiding it either - I just am not moved to create my usual (and more than annual since there are several new years: Chinese, my birthday, Easter, Rosh Hashanah, Buddhist) page of things I want/need/should do over the next 12 months. This year which feels so full and promising already just wants a simple thing from me and finally, after 50 years, I feel finally ready to give it - which is to just be open, receptive and yet porous so that what comes passes through me, like any other gate. Or as any good dog would tell you - more sniffing and less scratching.

We're all gonna SHINE in 2009!