Break

SGHolland, December 2018

A break can be anything that disconnects in some way.

Whether a good way or bad way, it’s an interruption, either permanent or temporary.

The latter part of December is necessarily an interruption in my personal world, every year. No longer is it about harried shopping for holiday decorations and surprises. The kids are grown up and their kids are grown up now. We play a silly game on the 25th (or thereabouts) instead of breaking our banks with unhealthy generosity. We know quite well that we love each other.

My momentum, uneven at best even in normal months, gets broken at this time of the year. I sleep a lot.

And along with the reveries of sleep (I wonder…do bears have reveries when they hibernate?) there are moody moments of reflection on what is and is not important in my current life, and what to keep and what to let go.

What really is it that I want to do?

Where shall I expend energy?

Maybe just staying healthy and happy is the best contribution I can make
at this time in my 80 year old life. But there is more, itching to be recognized, and brought into being: words, art, readiness for acts of meaning and care!

The lull between tides is a quiet thing, most often. Can you hear it in your imagination? Weak little laps where there are usually strong, sand-moving breakers. A long stretch of sieved sand where the water mass has pulled into the sea’s center as if being gulped greedily by Neptune, and swallowed.

I will take a break from writing until the new year breaks. I am doing research. The reveries are active as I rest. The options are lined up endlessly, and here is when I shall pick and choose from them. One or two will be top on my list of things to step up to in 2019. The rest may fade, or just “idle” a while.

There is still life to be lived. I want to choose carefully where to plant my energies.

SGH©2018 Dec.