January 8, 2023

Elvis’ birthday. I didn’t need a calendar reminder or social media ping to remember. I’m a southern girl and I was raised on three kings: Jesus, Richard Petty (dirt track days,) and Elvis.

I was ten years old when Elvis died. Shades lowered and blinds closed as tears flowed down cheeks and turntables circled in tribute. Damn, that was a sad time.

Our Christmas totes are packed and waiting by the door to return to storage. We just drug the tree outside; the scent of North Carolina foothills lingers from the Dyson. I hate to see that lopsided beauty leave our living room. Every year, Smokin’ Hot Love Biscuit hauls our tree in his big Chevy to Fort Macon where it joins an army of others to be repurposed as erosion deterrents. It’s our own little private mountain to sea act and it makes me happy to see those trees later in the spring, hunkering down among the sea oats, holding firm against the surf.

Two weeks have passed since Christmas and one week since New Year’s Day. I just finished my vision board and settled into my word for 2023. I used to be timelier, but lately I’m finding that I’m more round-about than four-way stop. Life’s traffic is fluid, and the pace aligns to the things that matter. This year I shifted my official start of 2023 in remembrance of King Elvis. It’s working out well, thank you, thank you very much.

I like a new year. The turning of the calendar, the beginning of most anything really, fills me with hope and promise. In grade school, when the teacher circulated through the classroom distributing 9 X 12 pieces of eggshell construction paper, I grew giddy with anticipation. It was art day and even at age eight, I appreciated a quality, heavy weight paper. I embraced the chance to sketch out a masterpiece with fat crayons and enthusiasm. I’m a word kind of artist and what I created often fell short of what I envisioned, but there was always the flip side of that glorious paper and the assurance of next week with sharpened Crayolas.

Adulting is a big rug yanker outer, jerking the delusional guarantee of more paper, more chances to color, more moments, days, months, years from our imaginary grips. Time is a game of smoke and mirrors, and there’s an infinite amount of it until, well, until (poof,) there isn’t.

Since the countdown that turned the year odometer to 2023 and my official new year start on January 8, two of my friends got engaged and two high school classmates passed away. In one short week, life lift and life loss. I find these things to be both encouraging and sobering.

At fifty-five, it’s safe to guess that I am beyond middle age. My DNA doesn’t nod in my favor of living to 112, which means that mathematically, I have lived longer than I have left. This doesn’t feel like a downer as I have experienced a most fabulous life, especially in my now. SHLB and I live in what seems like a dream, surrounded by friends, backdropped in the beauty of the southern Outer Banks.

This hasn’t always been our life. SHLB says, “It only took us fifty years to be overnight successes.” I fully acknowledge and feel indebted to the truth that hard work, timing, luck, disappointment, major illnesses, deaths, courage, and the grace of the big King have landed us in this state of happiness. It’s both good and fleeting. We are repurposed trees, and we hold fast, shoring up each other and many that we feel blessed to have in our wake, and the tides are sure to come.

My cousin had a personal rough patch this fall. On the scale of easy to hard, it scored a solid 9.7. She said to me, “We all have our turn at trouble. And right now, it’s our turn.” She asked for prayers and when good news came, she always, I mean ALWAYS responded, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” Man, I want a faith like that.

During the first few days of January, as I was half assing most everything, taking decorations down, writing country songs that I didn’t finish, cleaning out my office, trying to choose my word for the year, I found an old poem that a friend gave me in 1993. It was first published in 1953. (It seems there’s a theme of threes in this essay.) Nadine Stair’s title is somewhat of a spoiler, “If I Had My Life to Live Over – I’d Pick More Daisies.” She ponders doing life all over again. I can wax philosophical on this point too, perhaps falling short of submitting to the reality that I do get to do it all over again, most of what really matters anyways, every day, until I don’t. Until what I most value and love is inaccessible or gone.

My word for 2023 is room, which is how I want my year to play out. More room for good things, no vacancy for bullshit, choosy with roomies, and even an older definition which means solid position or stance. It feels right and honest, and sort of funny to me that the universe brought me this word because my favorite room is outside –where this year, I plan to spend a lot of time – picking more daisies.

I hope you do too.

Thank you, thank you very much.