Out of sorts, that’s what I am, out of sorts. The last two weeks I have been going non-stop and still haven’t taken a moment for myself. I know that this is the normal way of life for most people, especially if you are a parent or spouse but today I stopped, just for a minute and remembered…I remembered that I am. I let myself get all shuffled into the craziness of minute workaday details and forgot to smile, forgot to laugh, forgot to write (not really…it has weighed heavy on my mind all week but I didn’t slow down to write).

There have been so many things going through my mind, things I need to comment on and think about and poke fun at but I didn’t. So I logged off my email on purpose (just for a minute) to sit down here and see if there way anything that I just needed to say………..

The New Year is here….there are several different beginnings of a year for so many people and mine is about to start again and I am excited and happy and tired already. I have cleaned and repaired my camping equipment, washed everything I could stuff into the washing machine, painted prayer sticks and cut material for prayer flags, stripped herbs for making teas and restocked the conventional first-aid kit (you know someone will need a bandage during ten days of primative camping). I have written list after list after list of things I need and things he should not forget. I have inventoried totes and positioned them for transport.

I realized today that I have been using some of my camping totes for over 10 years (not a bad run).

There are more prayers to be made, more groceries to be bought, more cleaning and packing to be done but it is the New Year and these things cannot be put off.

I sweat lugging totes out of garage and then back into the garage, I sweat while going through each tote to ensure of its contents, I sweat because the heat index is pushing 100 degrees and then I remembered to smile.

The sweating and the sun go together at the beginning of my New Year! The celebration that begins on the first day of purification comes not without tears and sacrifice and by the end of the forth day of the dance knowledge and enormity of what has just been accomplished will be celebrated at well.

And after sitting her for a minute to remember to write this down I realize that I am not so lost afterall.