Dancing hands

Here I sit.

It’s December 31, 2017, a few hours before the ball falls. My husband is sick in bed with a god-awful cold and I am in my office listening to Pandora New Age while I press keys and dream a new post. I say “dream” because for me, all writing begins as a dream until its done and ready to post or send.

The last few months have been difficult months in which to write. We moved, my job required more hours and the intenseness of the season took its toll. But once our tree came down I dove in and finished two columns and an essay I sent big-time. The columns will most probably make the paper but the essay, I’ll have to wait a little longer on that one.

I thought writing such a personal piece would be hard. But when my hands stared dancing, the words came easily. It was almost as if they were waiting to spill out and soak the page. It’s good. I know when my writing is good and this one is. It’s a, mask off, honest piece. Whether someone else wants to read about my failings and eventual triumph is, as they say, another story.

As I get older these kinds of pieces have become important. Because I’ve trudged through shit, and come out the other side, as they say, smelling like a rose, maybe my experiences have significance.  I’m thinking ‘book’. That’s how much it means to me.

On this special night all promises have merit. May we all experience new beginnings which foster success and may this be the year when, across the globe, honesty breeds peace.

Happy New Year.

The in between

Here along the edge of Long Island Sound, the by-the-minute stretching and relaxing of the ocean, is called tides.  High, low, as well as storm and neap tides are the constancy we lookers live with. The time of tide I find most interesting, and a bit confusing, is during the milliseconds when the ocean rests; it’s the breath the water takes just before it flips to either coming in or going out.  When you’re watching, it’s almost impossible to tell when it switches to going the other way. But, if you’ve stood on the shore long enough to feel your feet settle deeper in the sand as the water washes you in, you know, because you know.

My feet have settled in life long enough to know that for us, all of us, the tide has flipped. Storms-a-comin’, yup. Washouts, hell yes. Hard to know exactly when the rain, wind and flooding will stop so I turn to the experts who used to have all the answers and now speculate.

Within the family dynamic some flipping has been going on here too. Good flips, flips beckoning the sun in a good way, a very good way, almost too good. Is that possible?

For me-the-writer, I’m still taking a breath, paused at the shore wondering if I’m going out or coming in. Maybe it’s the time of year, so much going on, or maybe it just is what it is: the in between.

If I’m out of the sand flats the tide will soon overtake me, and if I’m standing at the high-water line, it will be going out without me. So what do I do? I pay attention.

When was the last time your tide flipped? And, were you paying attention?

The post recently entered here has been deleted because of consideration for traditional publication. I want to thank my writer-friends for their thoughtful comments. Though gratefully apreciated they will not be used.

This is kind of exciting actually.