So today begins another year of using new things. Things received as gifts, things purchased on clearance tables, surprising things found when looking through those boxes you open once a year which hold things once new, now not so. Yesterday I took down the calendar from 2007 consisting of photos of the stained glass windows in the National Cathedral. I have saved these, cut them out for use in, who knows what? Some other new thing…a bookmark, a card, a collage…..made out of an old thing…that will always hold a memory of the year just past. The 2008 calendar now hangs in its place boasting beautiful pictures of environmental art. Next year it, too, will be retired. Another ‘new thing’ that will be used up this year and find another use in the new year.
Tonight I will take the time to record phone numbers and addresses in my new personal calendar. Yes, I am one of ‘those people’ who still use a paper calendar and ink to schedule the daily events that make up my life. I have never been able to give in to a palm pilot or other technological calendar. I need the pictures, the photos, the little bits of wisdom that graces each day. Take today, January 2nd, for instance. The message simply says "Appreciate time". As I look back at yesterday I am encouraged to ‘envision peace’ because January 1st, in addition to being the beginning of a new year, is also World Peace Day. Did you know? I didn’t and would not have known if I hadn’t chosen this calendar to travel with me throughout this year.
I spend a great deal of time choosing calendars. It is a commitment. They will, after all, be with me all year….in boring and exciting meetings, for birthdays and dental appointments, for planning vacations and school release days, as a reference point for that very special dinner party that is yet to be created. As far as I am concerned, choosing a calendar is a decision that takes time and a certain amount of reflection. Once or twice I have even had to abandon a calendar that was chosen too quickly. It was a disappointment.
As I think about these new calendars they take on the presence of a traveling companion. What will we see together this year? Will the days fill up with joyful and creative experiences? Will too many days fly by with little, if anything, recorded? Will the times and events be gifts or simply obligations? When I retire this calendar, once new, will I look fondly back over the year’s experiences or be happy that they were survived? Three hundred and sixty-three days will tell the story.
A new year. A new calendar. An open book of spaces and places yet to be recorded,discovered,lived.
"Now is the time to know that all you do is sacred." Hafiz