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So I’ve been inside my head a lot lately because I have a lot of changes going on in my life. I’m getting used to the fact that I can’t call my mother when I want to and was told by a friend who lost her mother 17 years ago that I gets easier but there are moments that can make it seem like she died yesterday even 17 years later.

I’m also striking a balance from wanting to be with Tin during his waking hours – which are not many let me tell you – as he still needs a thirty minute chill out in the morning and he takes up to a four hour nap in the afternoon and then is ready for bed by 8:30. But be that as it may, I’m also trying to put the oxygen mask on first so on Sundays I’m doing an exercise class that is not in the middle of his nap time because I need it.

I’ve also given a lot of thought to my steps in my career and at this juncture I’m high on the possibilities of the direction I’m headed and of course, anxious about it all as most of what I’ll do in the new year and beyond will be what I have never done before and yet everything I have done before if you really think about it. So it is with great hope that I go forward into Day 3 (that would be tomorrow – the first Monday of the New Year) of 2011.

And so, a lot of what has been on my mind recently is this part of my new life – this not past midlife (that would suggest I will live to be 100) but into the autumn of my being if I live into my 70s like my mother and not my 90s like my grandmothers. I’d say the voices that talk to me the most are generally positive and sometimes euphoric garnering me the status of a Polly Anna to most I know, but there are the dark voices of fear and worry that break through the optimistic crowd and try to light errant fires and spray paint graffiti on my otherwise joie de vivre. It’s those demons that I am trying to practice nonattachment for – they’re here, they’re not going to suddenly disappear, so how best to ignore them and go about my happy life.

My horoscope is appropriate on many levels this morning:

January 02, 2011

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

   You’re moving into a quieter phase of life — and you will be spending time on the sidelines for a while. But this time out of the action will be a welcome relief. You’ve got some big changes coming in the near future, so use this quiet time to prepare. There are new directions you can take things in — and all that’s missing is a real plan. So try to come up with one. All this introspection will fade soon, so delve as deeply as you can now.

Chateau de Chambord

My mother occupies her own light
at the lowest aperture
of winter. She is bundled up,

walking Angel, her Golden—
long dead now—from the carriage-house hotel
where we are staying

toward the black trees
where kings of Europe once hunted.
Thin snow blows

from the monolith of a cooling tower
by the wide frozen river.
The chateau is closing, a last

light or two; my mother calling Angel
in the dark by the trees
where only the snow is not natural.

JEFFREY GREENE

Beautiful Monsters
Pecan Grove Press

Practice nonattachment

Cultivate the habit of free – a) use the library, quit buying books on Amazon; b) listen to WWOZ, quit buying Itunes songs; c) revisit your wardrobe, no more clothes/shoes/jewelry.

A mitzvah a day

Quit making lists

Across my Yahoo homepage flashed a news blurb about cities losing their populations – I clicked on it because the image was definitely New Orleans shotgun houses and I was surprised to read this sentence “New Orleans has lost a quarter of its population over the last 10 years as a result of Katrina.”

Katrina happened in 2005.

There were 79 million babies born between the years 1946 to 1964 and let’s say half were women, and they are now reaching menopause, and guess what – the hot flashes alone are what is tilting this planet towards extinction.

We had friends from Puerto Rico, Brazil, and the neighborhood over today for New Year’s lucky food – black eyed peas with turkey tasso, cabbage, mashed sweet potatoes with a lucky dime hidden in them, garbanzos with dates and star anise, rice pilaf, cauliflower, and loads of sweets from sweet potato pie to homemade cookies sent home from last night’s party with us. It’s like we got up and went into this whir whir whir mode.

I was speaking to a friend and neighbor who said that he has gotten used to the fact that he is lucky and I told him that I know I’m lucky and my dark times are when I think my luck might be running out (because how can this streak last, I sometimes shout inside my head!). He said it is music that helps him through the darkness. I spoke to another friend and neighbor who said that she’s hopeful love is in the air in 2011 and that love is all it takes to get by.

I’m here to tell you what it takes to get by – a good friend who is near the phone, a good book that is engrossing and can transport you, and a new episode from The Louise Log, finally posted today. Diversion is sometimes the best thing to quell the demons in your head or the living demons breathing down your back.

Last night, we came home from a party to put Tin to bed and found ourselves falling in right behind him. It had been a long and emotionally trying day with a lot of the same monsters rearing their heads and when we were lying in bed the fireworks outside mirrored the fireworks inside. I woke this morning with an email from a friend who sent this Hawaiian poem from Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len called the Ho’oponopono prayer:

I love you
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you

It is an ancient Hawaiian prayer about making things right. You repeat the poem over and over. So again:

I love you
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you