Resolutions

There are other ways to do New Year's Resolutions.

I usually don't set new goals for myself on New Year's Day. I am usually napping or nursing a little hangover and trying not to gag at what is left of the holiday food. There is all the clean up to do for a few weeks after the mess of a holiday I am mostly reluctant to take part in. So I wait.

New Year's for me usually starts in September. I am always refreshed from the summer sun and love the autumn. I am charged up. Mid-winter is a killer in Vancouver because the sun doesn't show up often. I loved the broody weather when I moved here 35 years ago but am now less enchanted. There isn't a lot of joy in being soggy and boggy.

When I came here with my first husband, Stephen, it felt different. I didn't wear a coat for the first few years I was here because the temperature difference between Alberta and Vancouver was drastic. People shivered away here and bundled up in weather that was balmy to me. I was in heaven because the constant sprinkling rain was inspiring and the clouds amazing. I sat on the beach for hours and walked everywhere. I didn't wear a hat and had water streaming off my long hair most of the time. It felt soft and lovely.It smelled like the sea. People didn't wrinkle much. My little children used to stick their tongues out and try to catch a drink.

There were rioting raccoons on the porch last night. The compost bucket was torn into and I went out in my flannel nightie to chase them away. I opened the door in dread and was overwhelmed by the smell of the rain and the ocean. I went to the front steps and decided to sit there for awhile in the rain. It was the most delicious mist. and felt as if I had crawled out of it.

Decided not to crawl back into bed with poor sleeping Tim. The shock of my ice cold being would wake him up. I shed the soggy nightie and crawled under a slightly cold blanket on the couch. I dreamt of my old friend's Roberta Kass and Kaye Miller. They made me a pie and it was hidden in the cupboard. I was sitting in their house in Gibson's and was listening to the fire crackle. I looked at them and realized they were lost to me. The cancer had taken away many of my friends and had completely changed my life. But I thought that I wouldn't have been still enough in the past to really feel the fire.

My New Year's resolution is to love the rain again. And to light more fires.