photo of Buttonbush Pond in Winter by author

We all could make a list of what we would like to have happen in the new year. In our personal lives, we will wish for the health and well-being of ourselves, our families, and our friends. That may mean that we’d like our current life challenges to be resolved in a benign manner, that we will have the strength and wisdom to handle further unforeseen disruptions, and that we may continue to grow and mature in meaningful ways.

The list of what we would like for our country and the world might be roughly the same with some very pointed specifics. There are major changes that we want to see so that we can live our personal lives in safety, free from the harm of an unstable external world.

Considering a new year for both the personal and the external, we are faced with the reality that the two are intimately intertwined. What happens out there, reverberates in here. And, how we hold our inner perceptions, greatly affects our perceptions of what occurs in the world around us. We must acknowledge that so much of our lives is out of our control. This has always been so, but perhaps it is now an inescapable reality to see how fast our assumptions and expectations were upended in the space of this one year, 2025.

To me, the only path to well-being in the face of crises, is to make space inside of yourself to align with what reinforces your capacity to experience that sense of rightness. Elizabeth Lesser used the phrase, “everyday saint” in her book, Broken Open. We do not have to become the Dalai Lama, or spiritual masters- we just need to affirm our best selves in the lives that we live every day.

That moment of reflection before we react in anger, the pause to listen carefully to the person right in front of us even if you’ve heard the same litany of complaints many times before, offering to do an errand for someone else even when you’re tired- these are simple, extremely difficult acts to accomplish. Songya Rinpoche wrote (I am paraphrasing), “Miraculous powers (siddhis) like walking on water are all very well- but not reacting in anger? – now that is a miracle.”

The year that lies ahead looks to be dangerous sailing for so many of us humans. Realistically, it will take a long time for our world turn to back towards compassion and sanity. I feel anger, despair, and sorrow whenever I listen to the news. But I do not linger in those normal responses. I cannot afford to contribute to darkness but will work to bring myself into gratitude for the light that still exists. There are millions of others everywhere who also hold the light, but who are not in the headlines. They are hardworking everyday saints just like you and me.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year.

my grandma cup holding my first grandson.

I originally wrote this hot chocolate piece last year when I spent New Year’s Eve and Day at home n my residential community, Kendal at Oberlin. This year I had a wonderful bittersweet visit with my daughter’s family at their home. My grandsons are now 3 and 5 years old and we played many games, sang many songs, ate well, and they definitely ran and jumped around (a lot) inside as it was too wet and cold to be outside. It was very sweet, if appropriately tiring for all adults involved. The bitter part came because the whole family is leaving in 5 days for Barcelona and returning in July.

My daughter is taking the family to Spain while she does her academic research there. Her husband works remotely, and the boys are enrolled in a school in Barcelona that has students from many countries for as long as their parents remain in this very international city. My older grandson will be taught half in English and half in Spanish. The younger one will likely learn Spanish by osmosis with his age group in the schoolroom and on the playground as younger children often do.

When my son-in-law was preparing to drive me back home, the 5-year-old said goodbye , then added, “But grandma, you aren’t leaving forever.” I assured him I was just going back to my home and will be ready to greet him when they returned from Spain. The three-year-old apparently cried after I had I left because he hadn’t said goodbye to me. In fact, he had a 2-year-old moment and had refused to say goodbye as I wheeled away in my ever-fascinating wheelchair. Fortunately, FaceTime will remedy this omission and will keep us connected for the long haul over the next 6 months. I am so happy they are going on this grand adventure and I will miss them all like crazy.

Hot Chocolate 2024

As a kid, I wasn’t all that fixated on chocolate. Weird, I know, but unless there was chocolate in a rarely offered pastry like eclairs, napoleons, or croissants, I’d go for a piece of creamy or fruit filled pie every time. From a family box of chocolates, I’d gladly eat the ones filled with the good stuff- jellies or fruit fillings that nobody else wanted. S’mores were only part of outdoor fire events, and drinking hot chocolate was for outdoor winter playtime. With or without marshmallows or tiny peppermint candy canes, hot chocolate wasn’t chocolate to me, but something exotic and foamy and wonderful to drink as hot as my child tongue could take. Holding a steamy cup between snow-cold fingers after sledding and skating was a treasured ritual.

Hitting menopause changed my tastebuds. Dark chocolate suddenly acquired its proper place in my personal food pyramid. Because of living with MS, I never have been able to ingest lots of sugar or caffein without inducing an inflammatory immune response. To the outside observer, this dark chocolate desire is not evident. Once in a great while I can usually handle maybe one square of 95% cacao chocolate for dessert. It is deeply satisfying to me while others cannot believe I like something that is barely sweet to them. For me, the lack of sugar allows the essence of the chocolate flavor to linger and inform my senses with its tasty mystery.

Today, on New Year’s Eve, I remembered that I had a container of organic dark chocolate powder mix to make a cup of hot chocolate for myself. I opened a box of almond milk and microwaved some in my favorite cup. In went four decadent tablespoons of the mix. Stir vigorously, and voila! Hot chocolate. No marshmallows or candy canes were injured in the process of this experience.

I sipped and gazed out on the gray day. Some of my neighbors are away, and the paths are quiet. Even the sparrows and house finches are no show outside on my bird feeder right now. I slowly sip and nostalgia arises for my family. One daughter is home with two coughing little boys so there was no sleep for the family last night. Naps have ensued. The other checked in while streaming her favorite gamers after successfully selling off some furniture at the local secondhand store. All is well enough in their world, and I finish my drink with deep satisfaction and so much gratitude.

In my grandson’s Montessori preschool, each child’s birthday is marked by the birthday child circumambulating around a ‘sun’ to mark the passage of the year. A paper crown and, of course, cupcakes, follow. My just turned four-year old grandson knows it takes a long time for another year to pass before he will be ready to go the ‘big kid school’. We, too, have circled once more around the star of our planet. I will mark the event with my neighbors in some low-key gatherings, and now that I rediscovered the hot chocolate mix, I will greet the new year with one more cup even though this year there is no snow, no ice, and no crown, paper or otherwise. At my age, time is fluid in nature. A year seems forever to a youngster, and to me, it is more an arbitrary marker as seasons continue to confound us with unpredictable weather patterns due to our climate crisis.

            Raise your cup to auld lang syne (old times’ sake), whatever your choice of beverage! May 2025 bring unforeseen opportunities for deeply healing changes to “Crown thy good with brother/sisterhood, from sea to shining sea”, and all the way around our deeply troubled world.

December raindrops on berries in Courtyard Garden pond