Happy 2009 and some meanderings

2009 has been a year of much moment. Or perhaps at year end , we feel that because there is a logical beginning and end to much joy, sorrow, graying and achievement. We know some of the highs and lows of the year past. We stood at ineffectual candlelit vigils, or just ached at being emptily, but proudly Indian after the pain of 26/11. We discovered resources and togetherness in a nation. In recent recessionary times, we saw how flat the world was when companies and pillars collapsed, jobs were lost, and prodigal sons returned with empty hands from their promised land. But we still went to the moon, stood proud with nuclear powers, we still remembered it was good to be Indian, and be a citizen of the world.

Perhaps we need to desperately put a retrospective diary to a time span thats whizzed by. And being pretentious and measuring is one of the ways we do that. We need to look at endings before we start a real beginning, dont we? "Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again." Andre Gide.

Here is Day One: January 1st 2008 brimming with optimistic resolutions and spring in our step, and as moments start avalanching one to another, we flip pages right up to Day 365 . Here is December 31st 2008 now, while we wearily sit down on the nearest spot, catch our breath , to count both our love, our scabs and our laurels. We want all the stuff we felt, saw, experienced, rejected, to be neatly boxed in, examined one last time, retracing both the joy and un-joy, before its sealed away in a mental attic. It is our natural book keepers mind, looking at the accounts and ledgers and anxiously trying to balance the figures. It doesnt always add up. Its not always neat. And yet we tie the last bow, and put away the books with some regret. Its now some one elses problem. Perhaps the Great Auditor on High.
Nothing wrong with that.

"He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end." Harry Emerson Fosdick . I hope we always remember to choose the fairest, kindest means to our goals.

As we chew the end of the pencil, and inhale the crisp new smell of a fresh notebook, we can gaze at the promising emptiness of the sheets with anticipation of things better, happier, more intense than what we may have known. I wish for good things, and if there must be anything else, I pray the learning from it gives you anchor and lights up your path. I pray for enjoyment of the present, the stuff that future memories will be made of , and treasured . Og Mandino spoke eloquently of the mix of joy and sorrow, of opportunities and learning when he said "I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars."
So , in the new year , I wish you and your loved ones a year of wonderful beginnings , of great joy , of many deep breaths , of many celebratory moments and successes , and of shining light, yet some stars to find.

All the best to you and yours in 2009 ..