(Photo: Jill Sauve on Unsplash)
They named her Annum.
For being born just as the year turned time onto its head
To start anew.
Just as the numbers tumbled from the duos to the singles
To the very first
Of firsts.
A new beginning.
Just as she was,
Finally,
For them.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Year in 46 words
Photo: Xinhua County, China (Wikipedia)
It was the busiest time.
His loneliest.
He sought good fortune in small things. Mostly because it was absent from the big ones. There was always some disaster to contend with: illness, sorrow, loss.
He was born unlucky. His mother pushed by the side of the road because he’d come so quickly. He was blamed for his rash emergence. For her illness. For her early death. Blamed in the not-so-subtle ways that used words like blades.
“You always were impatient,” his grandmother would say. “Show too-little respect.”
He knew his grandmother resented his emerging like a peasant in the dirt when she had clawed her way out of the rice-fields. He had no response.
“Be grateful that you have enough to eat,” she’d frown. “Unlucky boy.”
Xinhua offered work. He fled.
The letter said that his grandmother had died.
New Year approached. His good fortune was to spend it alone.
For What Pegman Saw: Xinhua, China
Photo by Carl Attard on Pexels.com
Me being a softy for all manner of new beginnings, wrapping ups, looking back and facing forward, I’ve decided to participate in this lovely idea of a blog-to-blog blanket of gratitude, friendship, and community. Want to join? Read how here (also, thank you, Dale – for the idea).
The short of it? Set a timer for 15 minutes and let loose: write, detail, list, describe and put your gratitude into words. No edits needed. No wrong answers. No test at the end. Nothing to lose and everything to gain.
If you are so inclined, read my unedited, uncensored Gratitude Wrap Up — here I Go!
Want to make your own stream-of-consciousness gratitude list? Follow the link below.
For the 2018 Annual attitudes of gratitude list
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
May this year be as calm as you need it to be
As adventurous as your spirit requires
As hopeful as your heart can hold
As happy as pure joy
As healthy as is doable
As satisfying as your widest dreams
As filled with laughter as your belly can tolerate
As nourishing as warm hugs
As loving as your heart desires
(And then some
Because we can all use
Extra of love).
And … while we’re at it:
May this year bring an end to what no longer sustains you
May what drains you move on, or change
May hurts heal
May grief ease
May frustration untangle till truth’s in the clear.
May worry turn action
May stagnation find pace
May you be all you wanted to be
And a bit more still, just in case …
Blessings be to you,
Na’ama
Photo: Inbar Asif
As one year draws to close
And another gets set to rise,
Take a snapshot of your heart
In its joy and woe alike.
As moments tick toward the new,
Remove blinds from your weary eyes,
And let Soul show you who
You’ve been when you were wise.
It will revisit steps you took
So you can plan the next,
And hold the images of good,
For New Year’s light to reflect.
Photo: Amitai Asif
Finally
The time is near
To wrap up yet
Another year
To open
Doors
To better cheer
So stale old fogs
Can slowly clear
And fresh
New hopes
Appear.
For The Daily Post
Photo by: anselmona
On the almost eve of a new year, may your path hold clear as you pass into the nascent potential of what is almost born to be. For it can be, in truth, all that there can be.
Not all newness smells of radical divergence. In every sense, all paths we take form in the footsteps of those we already walked. It is where we head, how we carry our present time and what we see as possible, that breathes new life into the future. Farmers toiled for centuries, building fences to clear fertile ground and to protect the livestock with the use of the very rocks that made obstacles for plows. Stones remained stones even as they have become all that and then some.
We, too, are what we always were … and then some. We are who we know to be and what we learned to do about it, how we join the paths of others, how we forge our own to clear ground for new growth (hopefully in compassionate persistence). We are how we build with what is there. How we tend to obstacles and plow potential. What we form within us and around us. How we become what we know.
May the path hold clear in sun and mist, in fog and rainbow. May it be.
§§§
Gateways:
Every gate you pass holds pathways
Of times walked through
Stone by stone.
Every passage holding steady
Leaning onto
All that’s gone.
Every walkthrough
Every newness
Wraps around the times you know.
All the pebbles
Rocks
Big Boulders
That held back
Allowed
Remembered
All that needed
Fought
To grow.
As Fall arrives and with it change
May the color of your life enrich.
As trees turn green to yellow
orange
purple
red
May your life rainbow full ahead.
As weather shifts from
heat to cool
May your life find new pace
warm place.
As forests whisper on the wind
leaf to leaf in passing flow
May your path unfold
and all potential show.
As new years open
apples dipped
May your life’s sweetness grow.
As blessings swirl
In honey and in harvest’s glow
May your life plenty
know.
tucked away in the mountains
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