January has a Sound

(Originally published January, 2021)

Christmas Day has its sounds – wrapping paper crinkling, kids squealing, bleary-eyed parents clinking a coffee toast followed by a satisfied -if weary- sigh to a well-spent night of toy assembly.

New Year’s Eve does as well – the happy hum of chatter over cocktails and snack plates, friends and family counting down in unison crescendoing toward the snap-pop-cheer of celebration, the clink of glasses and the smooching kisses bringing in the year.

The first Monday back to work in the New Year has sounds too – the squeak of a dusty scale, the zip of a new hoodie, the pit-pat-pit-pat of clean tennies on the asphalt through the crisp air. There go the freshly resolved…jogging up then back down our cul-de-sac on this first foggy weekday. Five joggers so far…one brisk walker – arms swinging, head down…a mama with her newborn cooing with the whir of stroller wheels.

The house has a sound too…like a chamber echoing with the furniture back in place and the Christmas décor down, no rustle of garland against the hinges of the front door empty now without trim and lights. Did I always have such a big space on that wall? It’s bare without the tree filling that corner. Rooms resound differently with the Christmas village and nativity scenes put away.

The sound of the new year is silent pondering…will things will be the same that I want to change? Will the things I need to change be too much to move?

The sound of January is the click-clack of my keyboard…returning to routine, tapping out a new chapter, a hope and a sigh and a sip of coffee, and I’m ready to move through the sounds of this year.

Looking up through my window past my desk, to the trees across the way and the hills beyond and even further in a sense into the blur of days yet to come and I think, as I imagine those days out there…

“Teach me to number those days, Lord, so I might gain a heart of wisdom.”

… and I realize how old and true and honest that prayer is…

“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love…establish the work of our hands!”

January has a sound. It’s me, praying

Thanking
Committing again
My heart…My life…My days

To the One Who holds them all.

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