Markers in Time
New Year 2024!
Beloveds,
What is it about time? The older I get the more I can actually feel time moving. Have you noticed that it keeps speeding up? Or is it just me? It can be like a cozy warm sweater in the winter, a blister on my heel, a swift moving current, and occasionally, just occasionally, a cool breeze of calm like a refection pool on the most beautiful day. Each new year brings opportunities for joy and disappointments. Each of those carry their own weight.
Yesterday I was thinking about all the ways we mark time in our lives. It is so interesting how we measure our time here on this planet. A new year is a universal time to pause and reflect on the year past and what we anticipate as a new year begins. When we’re young we mark time by the years in school, homework due dates, snow days, sport activities, vacations, time with friends, birthdays, etc..
As a parent we mark time as we watch our kids grow from newborn, toddler, school years, and changes into their adulthood. Our time is frequently co-opted by their schedules (and of course the shared time is precious to us as well)! As our kids move into adulthood we move from working around their schedules to filling the new found time with our own to-do’s.
As adults we mark time by where we live, work, vacation, our relationships, illnesses, recoveries, and death of loved ones. We have calendars and watches to keep us “on track”. Our smartwatches keep track of our sleep, our steps, and our phones even keep track of our conversations. I can’t name all the markers of time in our lives because they are so unique to each of us. However, you get the idea of how important they are in constructing meaning.
We bring all of what we have experienced with us into our everyday interactions and that past is what makes us who we are today. The joyful times and the not so joyful times help serve as markers for us to keep track of our lives. Each experience is an important brick, a building block, that makes a foundation for our next step. Taking a brick or two out of our experiences leaves a hole and instability. We need them all.
Sometimes going back to strengthen the mortar around a brick so it’s shored up is a gift we can give ourselves. Life is messy. Experiences can leave residue which interferes in what we do in the future. I have found that all I need is a good ol’ power wash to see an experience more clearly and accept it for what it brought me. It’s also helpful to have a safe space that holds me with the intention of what God desires for me. The thing is, we all have the instructions within us to find the way and that way is personal, experiential, and sacred to you. Healing, not forgetting or replacing, is a gift. Just as taking time to remember and re-experience joy is a gift! I hear the phrase “holding all” which seems so simple, and yet, so hard to do.
I’m at the age now where the sand is fuller in the bottom half of the hourglass than the top half. The turning of the calendar gives me pause and I feel time being more precious and more intentional. I find myself seeking relationships that I want to deepen, connections I want to strengthen, and letting go …. ugh…. letting go sometimes a relief and other times deeply painful. My brain feels young but my body argues with that. I want to guard my health and yet I find it hard to resist things that I know aren’t “good” for me. Any of this sound familiar? And still, I know that every new year, every new day, every new moment brings the opportunity to live into my true self and to what the Divine intends. If you listen carefully for the Divine, in the very still of the moment, I know you can hear it too.
Wishing you a Happy New Year! May you find what fills you with love, joy, and an inner peace that steadies you in the coming year.
I Am The New Year Author Unknown Life, I am the new year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time. I am your next chance at the art of living. I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned about life during the last twelve months. All that you sought and didn't find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it out with more determination. All the good that you tried for and didn't achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires. All that you dreamed but didn't dare to do, all that you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed but did not have - these slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose. I am your opportunity to renew your allegiance to Him who said, 'behold, I make all things new.' I am the new year.
Timeless
There are not enough hours to walk by the river,
not enough hours to work and make soup
and dream and sit and do nothing at all.
Is it true there is not enough time?
There is time for every word
you have written, every petunia you’ve planted,
for every path you have walked,
for every lover you’ve kissed
and kissed and kissed there is enough time.
No. Not enough. Not enough time for reading
the tall stack of books on the desk.
Not enough time for making the pie crust
from scratch. Not enough time for wandering
in the forest with the soft green hanging moss
until you, too, remember you are a tree.
And yet you have read tall stacks of books.
Many, many tall stacks.
You have made cherry pies and rhubarb pies
and pumpkin pies from scratch.
You have wandered for hours through dappled glades
and draped your hair with moss.
There is enough time for everything you have ever done
and for every moment spent doing nothing at all.
How is it you feel such lack?
Here is the moment. Open it.
Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerAt The Edge of a New Year
I think of a year ago
and all I did not know.
I do not hold my innocence
against myself.
If there is a future me,
I toast her tonight.
May she look back at me
as I light this white candle
and whisper love into the flame.
May her thoughts be generous
as she remembers
how it is to live
with this heart,
both ruined
and burnished by loss.
As I toe the edge of the year,
the edge of the moment,
I imagine her waiting
on the other side, saying,
Jump, sweetheart, jump,
I’ve got you.
Or perhaps she says
nothing at all,
but stands there as I do now
looking back,
arms impossibly open.
Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerBonfire in the Heart
I throw in any tallies
I’ve been keeping,
the ones that record
who did what and when.
I throw in all the letters
I wrote in my head but didn’t send.
I throw in tickets I didn’t buy
to places I didn’t visit.
I throw in all those expectations
I had for myself and the world last year
and countless lists of things I thought I should do.
I love watching them ignite,
turn into embers, to ash.
I love the space they leave behind
where anything can happen.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer