Peace like a river

I'm going to start this new year by answering what I'm sure is the most pressing question that is keeping you all awake at night: Did she or didn't she?  Yes, she did.  Our oldest finally connected the dots and stopped me mid-toothbrushing to ask the question that has securely positioned her in the realm of mid-childhood, leaving behind one of the last vestiges of her baby/toddlerhood.  "You're really Santa, aren't you?"  Oh, child.  I love you so for your smile when you asked, your lack of shocked sensibilities, and your understanding that there is a difference between fiction and reality.  She asked, I answered, and we continued her bedtime preparations without any further interruption.  It was that easy. 

I'm sitting here getting back to what calms my soul, pecking away at a keyboard and wondering why I don't make time to do this more often.  Perhaps that will be my resolve for this year.  I heard the thought recently that if you write 1 page a day, in 1 year's time, you have an entire novel.  One page a day seems like nothing, an inconsequential requirement in my daily routine.  While I'm not pounding out a book this year (I don't think?), 1 page a day is still an attainable goal for any measure of writing.  There's some amount of thrill that will undoubtedly come when you see the pages pile up and have a tangible something to hold onto in order to measure your time and days that have already passed from the beginning of a new measure of time, a new year. 

The boy took the girls for a while this morning, and I have a quiet house, just the way I most like it with some morning sun filtering in.  I find myself typing this a bit slowly as well, in part because it's just a bit of nothing strung together but also because it's a delicious little cupcake that landed on my desk this morning, and I want to savor the taste for a while. 

I have a couple of new class sessions to prepare for, a baby shower to put together, and the last bit of a book all on my radar.  I taught with a friend for a while who as a new, single teacher out in Colorado had a limited income, as I suggest most young professionals do.  During a lunchtime conversation one day, he was talking about his time in Denver and how he used to buy some cheap seats to watch the Rockies play.  It was one of those off-handed pieces of advice that stuck with me: Pay yourself first.  And here I am this morning--banking some of my daily allotment of time for my soul's reserve.  I've been up for over 2 hours, so I don't feel as if I'm starting the day, but a brief pause before the next order of business is a good thing.

If only for this moment, I have peace like a river, I have peace like a river, I have peace like a river in my soul...  It's something, and right now, I'll take it.