The Only Life You Can Save
One of my favorite writing teachers,
, refers to the time between Christmas and New Year’s Day as “the hush.” The hush is a time of quiet reflection. Of cold nights and dark mornings. Of a pause between the holiday chaos and new beginnings.During the hush, nature pushes me inside. Away from frozen water troughs and cold noses. Towards the golden light pouring out of frost covered windows. To the fresh coffee my husband prepares each morning. Onto our living room couch filled with sleeping animals curled up on soft quilts.
In this quiet darkness, I’m drawn to writing and wondering what the year ahead will bring to me. And choosing what I want to bring into the new year.
What are you hoping for in the new year? Or what do you want to leave behind?
I wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life that you could save.