The turn of the calendar

Here in Chagford, the new year begins on a quiet, misty morning with sheep on the hills...

...ponies the fields...

...and Tilly at my side, as always.

On New Year's Day I'm always reminded of my favourite quote from L.D. Montgomery's Ann of Green Gables: Ann's practical and cheerful assertation that "every day is a new day without any mistakes in it yet."

My love of waking early is grounded in a similar attitude: each day begins as a bright clean slate and is thus an opportunity to work a little better, live a little better, perhaps make fewer mistake this time. (Or, as Samuel Beckett advised: "Try again. Fail again. Fail better.") Stepping into a new year is just the same, but a larger scale. It's a brand new year, with no mistakes in it yet.

I look forward to sharing it with you.

I've had some very kind requests to re-visit last year's New Year post: a reflection on the Pennsylvania Dutch folk customs my mother practiced on New Year's Day...and why she clung to them so tightly. You'll find the the piece here: "On the New Year and fresh starts."

The poem in picture captions above is from Words Under the Words by Naomi Shihab Nye (Far Corner Books, 1995). All rights reserved by the author.