Thinking about the New Year

A few years ago at New Year's Eve we had several teenagers around our dinner table and we asked them what they saw in their five year future. Their answers were very interesting and thoughtful and we spent the rest of the evening discussing them.

Five years is such a long and short time these days. Tomorrow evening we'll have ten adults around our table. We are old friends (and we are old!). What I want to ask them to say is 'what was the best celebration of your life that encapsulated moment in time you'll always remember?'

I have many such moments and I will pick one to begin.

Maybe in the future I will say that this holiday week was one. My daughter and her seven year old son, my son and his three boys, and his wife, pregnant with twins, a nephew, my daughter's partner, many friends - all were there to celebrate. I had a certain amount of trepedation about this week, but as it played out, it was incredibly great. We did everything traditional that all the kids remember about our expansive life on the ranch. Great food cooked by the whole tribe, truck rides to pick oranges to feed the cows, card games, art, lots of legos, night hikes with flashlights to see alligator eyes and spider eyes, noses in books, outdoor play, picking pea pods off the vine in the garden, hikes, the puzzle, many connections to technology, pets, bonfire, getting golf cart and truck stuck in a pond and having to be pulled out by the tractor.

They all left this morning so we spent some hours restoring our house and the guest house to normalcy. They are all good- no major mess to clean up, but there were nine loads of laundry which takes time. And then new guests arrive! But these ones are our most low maintenance ones.

I feel so blessed to have this amazing family! "Grandma Molly!" I hear them calling me and I respond. We love each other so much. "Grandma Molly, I have a question," Quincy asks. "Why are coal plants bad?" This seven year old and I am walking theough the woods with his grandpa and uncle and we are a few steps behind the men. I try to answer as best I can. (How does this kid even know about coal to generate electricity?) This little guy is full of questions. We talk companionably during the five mile walk (he never whines or complains, just is interested in everything)

And hours later I speak with his older cousins as they are making a movie. So much interesting and creative stuff going on here. Surely this will be a visit to remember.

The last night G'ma Molly found in her magic drawer some boxes of sparklers and so the two smallest cousins lighted them and zoomed around the yard feeling powerfully full of lights.

I love this diverse life of thick family and then just the two of us who talk our headfs off with each other.

Who knows what the future will bring?  We just have to address this bird by bird.

Happy New Year!