Hello world,
This is something that I shamelessly stole from Neil Gaiman. The idea of a New Year’s wish, even though this year he did not make a wish for us:
I love you all. Even the ones I don’t know. This year I’ve not got a new New Year’s wish. I hope the world is gentler to each of us in 2018, though. And that we do not forget how to be kind.
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) January 1, 2018
I still have a wish, on this difficult day. My wish for 2018 is that you find your balance. May you find the balance between taking care of yourself and looking out for others. May you find the balance between the frost and the fire. May you find the balance between fighting fights that need to be fought and walking away so that you are not always fighting. May you find the way to channel our destructive emotions into useful things and use it to find your balance.
Love and balance,
Trisha
P.S. As I typed the wish I realized how much of this was inspired by Sir Terry Pratchett’s Wintersmith and I Shall Wear Midnight.
***
Today marks two years since my dad was murdered. This time two years ago I was getting ready to spend the night at my parents-in-law’s house after I had come to my childhood home and seen that the horror of the truth of a phone call that I hoped was a terrible mistake was a harsh reality. And so, on this difficult day I am grateful for music that helps me feel. The specific song that called to me now was Song for my Father by Kim Boekbinder. A haunting piece of music, whose lyrics I identify with:
In between me and you
are a million points of light,
I’ve cast them up into a darkening sky.
You can follow them to me
when you are lost or you are free
and I will wait here, I will wonder why.
I don’t presume to know the meaning that Kim Boekbinder intended, but I know that for me the idea that my dad tossed up a million points of light into the darkening sky to guide me is comforting. Death doesn’t end relationships, it changes them to be one sided and made up of memories and interpretations. I was always a daddy’s girl. Ironically after I became a mother I now identify more strongly with her and understand her more, but she is also gone, but naturally (even though suddenly as well).
And I know in the music and the memories I will always find my dad.
Love and grief,
Trisha