Be Forgot

I have no sentiment to write a sentimental post this New Year's.

In general, the New Year's makes me contemplative but this year, I don't know.

I'm still recovering from California Christmas, which we are never going to do again.

Don't get me wrong, it was lovely. So lovely I spent a lot of it crying--

the Shamu show made me cry

the Disney Princesses made me cry

riding the rides with my family made me cry.

So it turns out I might be a cryer.

We ate strange and delicious food (spicy chicken skin, chicken heart, octopus, chicken butt), and best of all, we ate my brother-in-law Z's miraculous pizza.

The pizza so good you feel you ought to preform ablutions before consuming it.

There was Trader Joe's champagne, which just goes to show you what a wonder--

there was Trader Joe's.

Coronado island shone in the sunlight and my memory, a crown jewel. An unplanned, accidental visit. Blue light, blue city, sweet blue sea.

And that enormous, wise killer whale interacting with its human trainer moved me so.

Mr. V's five siblings and two of their spouses pitched in and gave us a wonderful and unexpected gift.

And I spent most of Christmas day watching my daughters play by the ocean. They run so fearless into the waves. They tire and pause to dig in the sand. The tide was so low it made us talk of tidal waves, but Poseidon that day swept up treasures, whole sand dollars one after another, perfect and unbroken, onto our shore.

What a gift from the sea gods. My daughters screamed with joy. We found a grassy sea anemone and before a towering wave crashed, we stroked its purple tongue.

It was beautiful in every way, but we have resolved this year to spend Christmas home with our children.

And I hear Disneyland is less crowded in May.

So New Years, I find myself somewhat blanched.

Like I've been plunged in to boil and left out to dry.

I'm not a big resolution maker because for me, real change comes slowly and cannot be decided and done overnight.

But I have committed to consider how it would feel to release beliefs that no longer serve me.

Beliefs that are harmful.

(I read that this is how it's done. I can't force myself to let go. I can only open myself up to the possibility of doing so).

So January second, too late for it to be a real resolution

I consider letting go of two beliefs:

the belief that some dreams are too big for me,

and the belief that I

am not enough.

2012, I am going to let you change me.

Take A Cup of Kindness

I wanted to say

that I don't make resolutions

even though I'm fond of making

vast, grandiose statements about myself

especially here on my blog.


It feels so good to be certain of something, if only for a moment.


So, sweeping statements of me and all the great

things I'm going to do this year keep

bucking about in my head.


But underneath them I can hear the truth.

And it is this:

The only thing I need to aim at

is kindness toward myself

and others.



To love myself.

To cradle myself with compassion.

To not wage war against myself with

unkind thoughts. Ugly thoughts.

With guilt or shame.

To not wage war by trying to be anything that I'm not.


I hope to one day aim

to extend such compassion and peace to others.

But I'm imperfect, see, and I'm going to try

to make peace with myself first.


I believe that thing I said once

about the ripples.

What you send out, I feel

and what I send out

bears weight.


If we all could just

be-love ourselves

we might together send peaceful waves

into a warm and

enveloping ocean.


Be loved.

Be love.


And that cup of kindness, we'll take it yet.