Friday, January 6, 2012

Now Who Went And Put New Year Here?


Hello again.  First blog of 2012.  Thanks for stopping by.  It’s good to be back. Happy New Year.

New Year.  Capitalized. I find this an interesting concept here in the depths of winter.

While I am a great believer in goal setting, I am not particularly one for making New Year’s resolutions. January first is an odd choice, I believe, for us to celebrate our New Year, but here it is. The calendar tells me so. The ball in Times Square definitely dropped last Sunday night. We’re in the middle of short days and dark, cold evenings. Snow remains firmly on the Colorado ground. Nothing is growing.  January first seems to me like a political division of time that has no reference to any event, astronomical, astrological, seasonal, or geological.

Wouldn’t New Year be better off at a different time?

Say, springtime? The earth is re-born. I shake off the winter blues and turn my head to the sun. My markers are the first daffodils blooming, new buds on the maple outside my window, the first bike rides of the season. It’s the most exciting time of the year.

New beginnings, new hope, endless possibility.

Or how about the first day back to school in the fall? I’ve celebrated more than twenty of them as an educator. A freshly painted classroom, empty walls, blank writing notebooks, fresh faces, new clothes, green grass on the playground. A year of discovery ahead. I turn to my eager young charges and feel the privilege of embarking on this journey alongside them.

New beginnings, new hope, endless possibility.

Yet, there is still something intriguing when the calendar flips over to a new number.  Here we are. 2012. An Olympic year in the country of my birth.  A year in which the Queen gets to celebrate a full sixty years on the throne (which makes me think that’s a seriously long time to be sitting on one chair anywhere, no matter how impressive the chair.) A presidential election year in the country that I call home.  A leap year around the world.

And, if you’re a parent or a teacher (and most of my friends are one or the other – or both), big things are about to happen.  This I know from experience.  Every January, children and teachers return to school refreshed and ready.  Amazing learning happens in these next few weeks.  Kids hit the ground running and grow in leaps and bounds.  Some of them might even learn to fly.

New beginnings, new hope, endless possibility. Just you watch. 

Happy New Year!

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