Lilies, larkspur and single-flowered stock – the fragrance of Old Spice and Easter, blooming in vases from the White girls.

New Year’s Day is my favorite.  You get to make it what you want – and who you are hoping to be.  Of course, this is true of every day but it is too terrifying to live that way.  We need the security of our familiar obstacles – at least, I know I do.  My cozy Reasons Why are among my oldest friends.

There are some things I want in 2021.  But mostly I think I’ll work on letting myself be.  I feel like I’m about as improved as I’m going to get, and any way who am I trying to impress?  One of the big lessons of adult life is that people are not paying that much attention to your flaws.  In fact, people are just not paying that much attention to you, period.

The Shepherdess vase has some big scars on the back of her cornucopia – the result of an accident serious enough to justify tossing her out.  Not hairlines or chips but fractures glued back together.  Mended and serviceable, but not the same.  And yet, more beautiful to my friend who inherited the broken vase because of the stories it contains. Meaningful to me because my friend trusted me to love a mended vase all the more when she passed it along.

I would like this year to be like the Shepherdess vase.  To forgive things for breaking, and to patiently glue the pieces together.  Not to forget what broke, or hide the scars – or make too big a deal out of surviving.  To know that a mended life still holds water, and can still be a beautiful container for lilies and larkspur.