The new year, 2021, has dawned.
As I write this post, I gaze out the window watching snow flurries mixed with raindrops steadily descending on our landscape which just recently became devoid of its snowy white blanket.
Winter really has just commenced here but it seems like that polar season has already occupied my mind and heart lately. I’ve been frozen in place, numb not just from pandemic restrictions and concerns but with a tinge of melancholy as Papa and I ramble around alone, for the most part, in this empty nest made even more so since we couldn’t see all of our family over the holiday season.
So I try to shake off those blue feelings by reminding myself it’s a brand new year. A fresh start for another year of life. January, this first month of the nascent year, is just the beginning of the minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months to come. And shouldn’t the onset of this dawning year be invigorating and one to anticipate with bursting enthusiasm and eagerness?
On New Year’s Day, I opened the window blinds upon awakening and noticed a breathtaking mural painted in the sky – dawn – as it was breaking over the hills. The radiant colors were magnificent and inspiring. Yet, soon afterwards as we dismantled the Christmas tree, my inspiration waned and fizzled just like those worn out twinkling lights lost their sparkle.
I remarked to Papa that I needed to busy myself readying blog posts for the month of January, but where to begin? Especially when that spark of creativity is absent? When new experiences just aren’t happening because we’re “sheltering in place” amidst warnings of another virus surge?
I lamented to Papa and he sympathetically replied, “That’s right, you’re finished with your lighthouse series, aren’t you?” I nodded, appreciating that he remembered even though he, not being a writer or given to sparks of creativity with words, doesn’t really understand the mire of doldrums I felt.
Being very uninspired and instead of writing, I wearily opted for cleaning out a pile of scribbled notes I’ve stuffed in my ol’ reliable notebook – the one chock full of quotes worth remembering. And as I sorted, copied the meaningful ones in the notebook, and trashed those hastily written slips, I stumbled across the following:
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
~ Plato
Simple words of truth, aren’t they?
If you don’t begin, you’ll never accomplish your work. If you don’t begin, your best-made plans are for naught.
If you don’t begin, you are stuck in the same place, frozen by whatever hampers you from moving forward.
If you don’t begin, you can’t create. The God of the universe shows me that in Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
In the beginning…in the beginning…where I am now in the beginning of a new year.
The proverbial light bulb illuminated reminding me that beginning now, in this newly arrived, unexplored, untried, emergent dawn of a new year, I’ve been given the opportunity to embark anew on a writing journey and I must seize it.
Even though we may be restricted physically from traveling too far from home, experiencing new adventures, or even spending quality time with family and friends, no one (or thing) can restrict my thoughts and my urge to assemble words of hope and encouragement on this blog.
And so I embrace and am grateful for another new beginning each morning to share my thoughts or whatever words are given to me, wherever they may take me. I sincerely hope you travel along.
“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” ~ Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328), German theologian
©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021
Mama's Empty Nest 
Sometime events overtake our planning…….. I used to be organised, then I worked out I spent more time organising than doing! 🙂
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I can identify with that for sure, I’m one of those over achievers when it comes to organizing. 😉
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Your post brought to mind some words of advice an old guy gave me after Hurricane Ike. We were talking about storm recovery, but his words might apply here, too: “Start where you can start, and do what you can do.”
And notice: he didn’t say, “Start where the bureaucrats tell you to start, and do what the ‘experts’ tell you to do.” Sometimes, pushing the boundaries just a bit is fine, especially these days!
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That’s a great piece of advice in all circumstances, shoreacres. I think we’re going to have to start pushing more boundaries than ever now.
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Every morning is a new day. Every phone call to a friend is a connection and each blog post can take us somewhere new. I find when I’m not inspired to write that the best thing is to write about why I’m not writing. Most often that says exactly what needs to be said.
and is in fact the basis of my blog – each writing session starts wit this sentence: I don’t know what to write about.
Normally I delete that sentence before I publish …
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Wise advice, sir. 🙂
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Oh my friend, you spoke to my heart more than ever. I, too, have been in the doldrums and frozen in place here in Phoenix. I have been feeling lost as to where to begin and what direction to go… thank you for your heartfelt post.
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Kate, I think many of us are feeling this way, how can we not? We’re only human and God didn’t create us to be isolated and not in fellowship with one another. I know we’re not isolated from Him and we can communicate with Him daily, but it also helps me to know that others understand and can commiserate with me. Let’s pray for guidance for us all. ♥
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