An observation about the new year . . .

. . . it's much more exciting to start a new year when you've done something fulfilling--like spending 3-4 days writing and developing your novel--in the final days of the old year. Then, it's not so much a starting over as a continuation. (I hope to continue . . . will continue . . . am looking forward to continuing . . . what I started this week.)

. . . as for the blunders I made in the nick of time to end the year with a fizzle, I hope the new year promises rebirth.

Sometimes our simple, naive, stupid acts make us feel so much, maybe they even change so much, which is one way of interpreting William Carlos Williams's lines: "So much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow . . . "

"If so much depends" on such small moments, then I really need to do a better job of making every moment matter. I need to think before I act. I need to show more restraint.

Just some things for me to think about as 2012 starts . . .

Someone asked me . . .

A friend of mine asked me (twice) if I could have just one wish, one wish for me, what would it be?

I feel lost in not knowing the answer.

I can't wish for the coughing to stop or the lungs to clear, because they're not my coughs, not my lungs.

I can't waste the wish on a career, right? Although wouldn't it be fun to be somewhere learning/teaching/experiencing advanced story? And a book? That already feels like a quiet possibility. Maybe.

I certainly can't use my wish to travel back in time and do it all over again with this "better" perspective age has granted me, because I don't want to do it all over. Any of it.

And I can't wish for losses to be filled when I've given up or forgotten how to feel their loss. (I think.)

What about a small farm? I'd like that. Just plants, crops, farmhouse, me. (No animals, except maybe the dog. And a cat. Maybe.) But you can't use up a wish on that.

"What happens to a dream deferred?" Langston Hughes asks, and then he runs through the possibilities: does it "dry up"? (and there's a reason this one is placed before the next one) "fester"? "crust and sugar over"? "Or does it explode?" (I've always liked that last line the best.)

I should wish for a shift in perspective, maybe?
I should wish for confidence? Intelligence? Success? (But whose version of success would I follow, and if I went with my own, wouldn't I just end up being this same version of myself that I am anyway?)

I'm more clear about what I want for others. My wishes for them include happiness, the ability to see and reach their greatest most beautiful potential, the ability to feel the excitement and importance of their dreams. I wish them all that they need, and more, along with the respect for and respect of others. I wish them love, both to love freely and to be loved. To connect with people in meaningful ways.

But for me and that one elusive wish . . .
I simply do not know.