A cold clear day in which I’m preparing to welcome guests for a New Year’s feast of chicken tagine, roasted vegetables, beet and orange salad, and Liz’s Christmas pudding, steamed in beer. The guests are all bringing contributions (oysters from a cold beach have been promised) too so we will not be hungry. There are sparklers and Cava for midnight. The table is ready for the 7 of us and in a few minutes I’m going for the last swim of 2017. Not in the lake, though I’m sure some people participate in that ritual. I’ll do my slow kilometer in the local pool, thinking of the year, its highs and lows.
A friend sent a poem this morning, W.S. Merwin’s “To the New Year”. Its final stanza speaks to me so clearly of the old year and the new year.
so this is the sound of youhere and now whether or notanyone hears it this iswhere we have come with our ageour knowledge such as it isand our hopes such as they areinvisible before usuntouched and still possible
...Theresa Kishkan 
Happy (Almost) New Year, friend! Your table is gorgeous. Have a lovely evening (and swim) and we’ll chat soon. Hugs to you and John. Hibernating over here…xoxo Andrea
You, too, Andrea. A wonderful year ahead. Will let you know when I next come to Ottawa. (Hint: there’s a baby due in summer…)
Here’s to another year of great beginnings and invitations and blessings!
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Too bad you’re so far away! It’s a huge tagine….
Your feast looks and sounds beautiful and delicious, Theresa – and I can nearly smell it, so far away, here in the bitter frozen wasteland. A happy, healthy, creative 2018 to you and John and all your gang.
Our house smells wonderful! The wine will be snow-chilled, the singing loud and maybe a little off-key, but with luck this household will see a new year come to the coast, under a wolf moon. Love to you in Toronto, Beth.
Happy New Year! Maybe we will meet again in 2018.
I hope so! A long time since dinner with your sister in London when we were in our (how could this be?) twenties!
How could that be indeed. I too lived in London for a few years, but in my 30’s, and it seems like a couple of lifetimes ago. My eldest was born there and now is 30 with a 5 year old.
Everything seems like a couple of lifetimes ago. But somehow accumulating in this one, which is both beautiful and sad.