Not Quite Ready for the New Year

Photo by Julie Falk

Friday holidays play havoc with my brain. For two weeks, I haven't had a clue what day it was. I unattached myself from my phone and forgot a few things that I probably should have remembered. Someone fed all the wandering children and grandchildren that floated in and out of my house. I played, colored, read books, and went to the (very warm, indoor) pool. I sat and talked, took walks and talked, went for coffee and talked, and hid occasionally in search of no talking.

By Monday afternoon the out-of-town crew was all gone. Yesterday the remaining in-town children departed for Arizona for a month with work.

The silence is golden. Golden, I tell you.

I jumped right back into my routine and haven't yet had my fill of this wonderful lack of words. I haven't had time yet to do my normal beginning of the year sit down with my old calendar and my old journal. I have been thinking about my "one little word" for the year, but I'm not ready to share it yet. Give me another week or two of introverted silence and I'll be ready.

For today, enjoy this excerpt.

from "Frost at Midnight" 
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

     Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

You can read the full poem here.

Tabatha hosts today's roundup at The Opposite of Indifference.