You Just Never Know
The new year pops in the night air above me, like a bubble of pink champagne. As waltzes play in the background, down comes a shower of shining possibilities, three hundred and sixty five in all, each one taking its place on my unsullied calendar, where they stand straight and tall, with fresh, clean faces that smile out at me, expectant, ready to do my bidding, waiting to see what I’ll make of them. As I flip through the crisp pages of this new year at hand, I can’t help but wonder what these clear, unmarked days might bring. I mean, you just never know.
What new books might I read during this icy cold month of January?
What sort of Valentine will I make for The Songwriter in February?
Will I plant English Peas in my garden in March?
Will I sit at the seaside on my birthday in April?
Might I walk in a garden under roses in May?
Could this June be the best one ever for all my hydrangeas?
What new hat will be my favourite in the heat of July?
Will I nap in a hammock in the white light of August?
What day in September will I feel the first hint of fall?
Will I knit a red sweater to wear in October?
Who shall gather at my table on November’s Thanksgiving?
And will next December’s Christmas be a white one again?
No matter how carefully we may plan our days, we never quite know what will happen. So much is beyond our control. But would we really have it any other way? Would we choose the safe coldness of certainty and forever lose the delicious possibility of surprise? Who knows, the heat of July could fry all fifty-four of my hydrangeas just like it did last year. But then again, perhaps instead of English Peas, I’ll plant magic beans in March. And perhaps those beans will produce a flower the colour of butter - a flower so large that Edward and I will climb right inside it and wait till a gust of pine scented wind blows us up and away over the clouds where we’ll live out the year in a land full of kookaburras and oranges and no one will even notice that we’re gone.
It’s a brand new year my friends.
And you just never know.
Painting above, "Jack and the Beanstalk" by Maxfield Parrish
