We'll Take a Cup Of Kindness Yet

Some thoughts on the new year

The last few days have been extremely dramatic over here. I’m going to tell you one heck of a story, when time permits.

Last night, after so many months of waging war on stuck energy and clutter, it seemed the night I tossed the Ouija board out, something shifted.A certain harmony set in. Doug and I attracted the first guests we have ever had in this house— two friends drove up from the city. We cooked, at, made glögg, danced, and stayed up till dawn.

I recorded a New Year’s greeting in Spanish for my family in Spain, and was reminded of the miracle this year brought—my son’s marriage, my daughter in law, and my new family in Andalucía.

Last night, we were able to conjure the spirit of New Year’s Eve, which is a spirit of hopefulness.

It may be a cruel illusion but I felt perhaps 2023 may bring back life again—life as we knew it.

I was in the supermarket shopping for food, when I began to think about a new idea:

Happiness. Or maybe I mean joy. (My late mother’s favorite perfume.)

Why not?

I’m referring to a devoted internal joy one can evoke just by deciding to be grateful.

A joy connected to no rhyme or reason.

This may be the very answer to breaking through the dark, viscous ‘spirit of Covid’ which I had allowed to overtake my soul since 2020, even though I believed precisely zero if its threats, terrors, or projected events.

How does one do this, when all the evidence argues for more tyranny and awfulness to come? Just little moment, acts, and choices.

I spoke to my best friend of 39 years in Sweden, just before New Year’s and asked about her family’s Christmas. She told me, to my delight, that she and her husband—they’ve been married some 35 years—had spent the better part of the evening, after their daughter went out, dancing. Alone in their home, they just danced.

Nobody is ever actually stopping us, except our own habitual (speaking for myself) dimmed expectations.

When I thought back on 2022, for all its surreal horrors, there were also miracles, the last one being the story I have yet to tell you, cited above.

Having this place, this Substack, and having attracted precisely the readers I have, has been a dream come true.

Thank you for being by my side during this utterly bizarre year, 2022, and for helping me develop my confidence and voice.

We’ve lost so many loved ones and friends, lost our entire world, in a sense. But now that we have survived the needle apocalypse, maybe it’s time we trust ourselves, stop cowering.

If we decide, really decide, that we’re done living like prisoners, we can take back our lives, with small acts, small moments, small cups of kindness.

Wishing everybody a deep sense of serenity, hope, and joy for the new year. We’ll stick together, have fun, and keep growing.

Happy New Year!!