New Years Note To Self

by Kimberley Thompson, Tastemaker in Residence

The bitter cold temperatures plaguing Minnesota caused me to re-think my New Year's Day tradition. Call me a craven coward, but I like my fingers, toes and facial skin just the way they appear right now. Not deadly white/waxen or weeping fluids as the flesh sloughs off. (I DO KNOW how to dress and behave in these -12 degree days with a windchill of negative 34!) But the wiser me believes avoidance of these miserable temperatures was preferable to dressing in 5 layers and risking skin and limb.

The tradition of heading up one of my favorite oak knolls with Watson to sit under the gnarled boughs of the oldest oak and review the past year and the future yet to be, lost all appeal and sentiment to the reality of extreme cold. 

But I like sentiment and symbolism. I like tradition and the comfort rituals bring to my sometimes chaotic life. I needed to feel like I was taking off the old and putting on the new.

So, I went to my desk and found a sheet of beautiful stationary. I cut it into 40 pieces and laid it out on the writing surface. On each piece I wrote worries, blessings, prayers, hopes and anxieties.  

I sat in front of the fireplace with its merry flames...and one by one...surrendered each piece to the flames. The scraps were accompanied by a prayer, a "thank you"...a "please help"...until all the notes were consumed. I visualized my positives winging their way to the Divine Ear and the not-so-good moments turning to ash and crumpling into nothingness. Thought was given to each piece, some briefly, others several minutes or more, before I placed each note at the edge of the flames.

I am happy.