You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
       love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

[photo of sandhill cranes(gathering and flying home from Gainesville now) by Anthony Rue]

WONDER: A feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.

"If you're feeling helpless, help someone." 

"Mom, I'm fat." One woman's response to her 7-year old.

How doctors choose to die.

A good book for the new year.

Why to bake bread.

{photo from Reading Revolutions: Intellectual History}

It made me start to wonder if there were other people so lonely so close. I thought about "Eleanor Rigby." It's true, where do they all come from? And where do they all belong?

What if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to a combination of things, like your heartbeat, and our body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood? If you were extremely excited your skin would turn green, and if you were angry you'd turn red, obviously, and if you felt like shiitake you'd turn brown, and if you were blue you'd turn blue.

Everyone could know what everyone else felt, and we could be more careful with each other, because you'd never want to tell a person whose skin was purple that you're angry at her for being late, just like you would want to pat a pink person on the back and tell him, "Congratulations!"

Another reason it would be a good invention is that there are so many times when you're feeling a lot of something, but you don't know what that something is. Am I frustrated? Am I actually just panicky? And that confusion changes your mood, it becomes your mood, and you become a confused, gray person. But with the special water, you could look at your hands and think, I'm happy! That whole time I was actually happy! What a relief!"

- Jonathan Safran Foer, in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Birthday Project - Celebrating with one random act of kindness for each year you've been alive. You can read more here. I've got till August to think up ... a whole bunch of actions.

Friendly Sky Kit - What a great idea for parents traveling with children! A little gift to give to the passengers next to you to make up for the possible disappointment they feel when they see you and the baby (or, horrors! a two year-old) heading toward them. I've been on both sides - trying to comfort my distraught child while begging forgiveness and understanding from fellow passengers AND being the passenger with grown children who truly empathizes but really, really needs a nap. I think you could make these on your own. 

English test - "If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world."

Ten New Year's Resolutions for a Lifetime - Thank you, Gandhi. 

Sweatin' to NPR - Accompaniment for your other New Year's resolution. 

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 - It's just amazing to see these "black-and-white" years in living color. 

{photo: garden adjacent to a dug-out home in New Mexico, 1940 - from "Captured," above}

1. St. Francis Inn in St. Augustine, Florida - which is where I happen to be due to a fortuitous mix of gift certificates, Christmas gifts, and house guests willing to watch over things at home. I just woke up from an afternoon nap to write this. 

2. Kindle - I got one for Mother's Day last year, and it makes packing up for a weekend away so much lighter. 

3. Seasonally cool weather (finally!) and the need for fires in the fireplaces. Our old house is too big and drafty to heat efficiently with central gas, so we are heating in the most inefficient way possible - a wood fire in a fireplace. Somehow it works. We close off the dining room and living room, light fires in both rooms, and voila! It's toasty and ambient, and even the teenagers want to hang out and enjoy it. 

4. A new recipe book - I haven't bought one for so many years; the internet, the slough of books on my kitchen shelf, and years of recipes in my head made me swear I would never buy another. But I got this one (on my kindle) and am really enjoying trying something quick and new this time of year when so many things are growing here and we've had so much company. So far we've tried Spicy Orange Greens, Shepherds Pie (with mashed sweet potatoes on top, instead of white), and black bean patties with lime creme. Very different than our usual favorites - and fun. 

5. My broken computer. As horrified as I was when I first gazed upon the Rorschach blot staring back at me where my pretty screen saver used to be, its (temporary) demise has been an answer to a prayer: "Good god, where has the time gone?!" Having to borrow a laptop from my husband, or perching on an uncomfortable wooden chair in the cold hallway at the kids' desktop, has drastically cut my screen time - good practice for a new year's resolution to be more real, less virtual. 

Some inspiration for taking care of yourself in the new year. 

What life is like if you don't like football. 

An inner city Los Angeles school stages its first play in twenty years - OT: Our Town.  It streams on Netflix, or you can watch it here. 

Louis C.K. does what artists do - helps us see ourselves. But somehow he makes us laugh too. 

I have a new year's tradition of writing thank you notes to five or ten folks I have most appreciated over the previous year. Imagine doing it every day!

It happens all the time in heaven,
And some day

It will begin to happen
Again on earth-

That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are
Lovers,

And women and women
Who give each other Light,
Often will get down on their knees

And while so tenderly
Holding their lover's hand,

With tears in their eyes,
Will sincerely speak, saying,

"My dear,
How can I be more loving to you;

How can I be more
Kind?"

-Hafiz

However! Last week, after watching my umpteenth documentary while furiously knitting and crocheting Christmas gifts, I came upon something new, by way of "Forks Over Knives"  (a movie often recommended by my vegan-ish friends): Spicy Orange Greens. 

We happen to have an abundant supply of greens right now in our little parking lot garden, and I used a mix of broccoli raab (aka rapini) and curly red mustard. I've already made it twice, once with my own calomondin marmalade and once with a friend's gift of "ginger marmalicious." They tasted fresh and delicious - less dense than the olive oil sizzled ones, and the combination of ginger and citrus gave them a nice holiday ambience as well. I will be eating these for good luck on New Years Day, if not before.

SPICY ORANGE GREENS

1/3 cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon orange marmalade
4 cups greens

Pour water, soy sauce, ginger and red pepper flakes into a skillet. Turn heat to high and saute until the ginger is fragrant, about 1 minute. Whisk in marmalade and then add chopped greens. Reduce heat to medium and using tongs, turn greens into the sauce. This will help cook the greens down; stop when your greens are bright green and have softened. Serve.

If you love New York City and old photos, here's a little gift for you - from the early 20th century, and the 1940s. 

Life in a Day. Eighty thousand videos from 192 countries were uploaded by people wanting to share what their day - specifically July 24, 2010 - was like.  It streams on Netflix, or you could watch it here. 

A sweet post-holiday story by Rachel Naomi Remen, physician, medical reformer, and educator.  

The Lives They Loved - a memorial to "ordinary" extraordinary folks who left us this year - created by those who remember.