When I was a kid I thought each new year was an adult, a Santa Claus of the calendar, born in full health and vigor on January 1, here to bring me a giant gift, of fresh start, blank pages, and forgiveness for all that I did – or didn’t – do last year. It’s how you think when you’re young, and empty, and need, need, need.
At this stage of life I see it different. 2016 is just an infant, a fragile little thing, with a life span so short and certain that its gravestone is already engraved. It is I who am the adult, with experience in this life and time thing we have going on…
2016 isn’t here to serve me. It is my duty to serve it. 2016 needs my help, little grain of sand though my help is…
In 2016 there will be war, and murder, bad people will take advantage of good people, all the usual stuff of the days and months that make a year, but there will also be good, and I’d like to do my little part to add to the good, little worker ant me.
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How I Think About Time
When I was young I thought I was owed my life. This was kid-thinking. I was alive and that was that. Even when death came for the first grandparent…the dots didn’t connect.
There was a particularly embarrassing young adult stage where I thought I was kind of special, (evidence to the contrary and all that…) Like I was gonna do life a favor! (If winks make sounds, hear mine.)
It took some calendars, decades of them, to get me thinking about Time with respect and accuracy. Now I see time as All Gift, All Grace. I’ve said prayers of thanks over countless meals, but only decades into life did I think to say thanks for life itself, and another day of it.
Grandparents gone, parents gone, now, when so many better-than-me’s are no more, I wish to act with what I know, that life really does go on without us, and no one should meet the gift of a day without being clothed in modesty, humility and gratefulness.
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More or Less, My Goals For The Year
More of my own drummer. Let advertisers advertise, let marketers market, let fads have their firefly nights, and leave me be, and let me go to where I’m going, on that quiet trail, me and my angel.
More simplicity. I assume that’s an oxymoron, but I’ll take my simplicity one at a time or in Sam’s jumbo packs.
More doing of what I’m best at doing.
More smiles, more hugs, more how-ya-doin’s. More sincerity.
More out than in. More give than get. More ask than tell.
More patience. More forgiveness.
Less confusion. Too many pots on the stove, too many cooks in the kitchen, not enough room in my head…
Less drama. Tension is a thousand dollar bill, being used to light a fireplace in August.
Less hesitation in acting on the hints of our better angels.
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What If Years Are Like Dogs?
If you raise a year up mean, do you get a year that makes the neighbors afraid?
There’s gonna be more terrorist stuff, there’s gonna be more gun violence, there’s gonna be mean spirited politics; everything we had last year is on the menu for this year. It makes a fella feel pretty drop-in-the-bucket…and yet, small as I am, I’d like to do my little part, to make 2016 gentle.
I want to count blessings. Here, there, somewhere, I wouldn’t mind being one to somebody.
I want to be fair with everyone. I want to add and not subtract. I want to stand for something worthy. I want to aim above my laziness, stretch above my reach.
I want to appreciate the seasons of 2016. I want to feel natural in the four season play that every year gives us as a how-to for living a full life.
Onward we go, into this new year, making our little ripples in the water of time. You, me, and anybody else up for it, how ‘bout we aim for gentle behavior, for doing no harm, for being easy rubs on the elbow.
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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we appreciate all things timey, especially ole timey.
Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories can be found on Eighty-one’s Facebook page. Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.
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