I walk a lot with my dogs. Given the mild winter this year, even with the snow, we trudge out in evenings and wander the neighbourhood in a larger way than the morning, just-before-work, ‘just around the block now’ saunter. The best part of these walks are the lights. This time of year, they twinkle out from roof lines and jumbles of front porch shrubs that seem to be hibernating. It is the loveliest thing, to walk in early evening, and find your way lit by such colour. I know, I know….it’s January 2nd. It’s a new year, yet again. There is a tree out on a snow bank two houses down from me, so I get it: you want a clean slate, you want to welcome this new, whitest month, and you think tossing trees is part of that. Yes, it is, and I’m okay with that. Fire hazards are an issue. 🙂 I just really, really want to say that I’d like people to keep their outside lights up for a wee bit longer. For some, the holiday season isn’t the loveliest time of the year…but the lights outside make up for that, banishing gloomy thoughts, and lighting up a heart faster than you’d imagine possible.
This is all so ironic, I know, since I will now shamefully confess that I bought a whole string of white lights that never went up outside with the pipe-cleaner-affixed-garland that graces my front stoop. I did, however, buy a string of white faery lights that will stay up all year, inside my house. I’m bringing light inside these days, and hoping to beam it out with kindness each day. Finding your centre of light, and then sharing it, I’ve learned this past year, is such an important task to undertake these days, as the larger world struggles with violence, bloodshed, and upheaval.
I’ve been spending time looking at paintings over the last few days, and listening to lots of lovely music as I read or write. This brings me light. I’ve read poems and stories written by people whose work I love, and this too brings me light. We have such few external shows of light-ness, of hope, that the strings of lights around your roof top may very well have inspired me to write a new poem, or lift me from a bittersweet memory, so I hope you might leave those lovely lights up for a couple of more weeks. When the world starts up again on Monday morning, with a frenzy of deadlines and trying to do your best, maybe evening walks with light will comfort you, too.
Blessings in the Newest Year, friends. Read and write on! Share your light! If we all generate light and beam it outwards, who knows how the world will transform itself in 2016? I have hope…
peace,
k.
The Republic of Poetry 