New Year's Eve

I sent my BURN IT email to West Virginia storyteller Susannah Holstein. She will toss my troubles on her annual midnight bon fire tonight and free me to start the year feeling lighter

I read through my 2006 calendar. It has been a full year.
Some high points sure -

Mama at 90 made it though hip surgery -
our family is still in decent health -
Jim and I made a trip to Ireland which had mixed reviews but was something we had long wanted to do -
Jim and I spent a wonderful week-end in NC at Patti Digh's first 37 Day Retreat -
My storytelling career is healthy and busy -

But I have to ask myself - are these really the most important moments?
If not, what are the important moments?

Jim and I lived another year together and celebrated our 51st wedding anniversary yesterday.
My girlhood friend Carolyn died and I have to face the reality of my mortality with sharper clarity.
I am off track about some really significant stuff.
And on and on.

Do I make resolutions to change things -
ordinarily I would have said yes,
until I read Holly Stevens essay on Storyteller and LIstener. Her touching story and suggestion of using "themes" has caused me to rethink things.

This is much like the new take on things I picked up from Patti Digh and her "reframe it" exercise at the 37 Days Retreat.

I told Patti as we left Bend of Ivy Lodge that I thought of her as a significant person in my life. I could not quite put my finger on why then - now I can. I first read her 37 Days blog in Janaury 2006. I loved the writing, her take on the world and her reverence for serendipty - which I share. I appreciated how she added the links that expanded the world related to the essay. Relatively new to internet and blogging it took me a while to really GET it. My world was expanding wider and wider through those links and connections.

At about the same time I discovered 37 Days I met Nellie. She is the mother of my grand-daughter's best friend. I was fascinated to learn that her job was writing a blog. Imagine getting paid to play with ideas and the computer. I started checking her blog New Persuasion regularly, but the content did not touch me personally.

A few weeks ago Patti wrote on 37 Days that she had been tagged for more information about her - tell me five things I don't know about you. I checked the b log of the woman who tagged her. She had tagged 4 others: Nellie, ___, ____, Patti and _____. Yep, that's the same Nellie I met a year ago.

It knocks me out.

The wide wide world - is really a small world.