Happy New Year 2018!

It took everything I had to put that enthusiastic looking exclamation mark after the new year in the title. After the grimness of last year's new year's post, I had hoped for a better year globally, locally and personally, at least personally. It was anxiety provoking and extremely draining.

On the other hand, there were some very special moments this year as well: healing, reconnecting with friends and family, time spent animals, plants, trees, renewed spiritual focus. A renewed commitment to my mental and physical health, in short, what brought me out west twenty-two years ago.

Life has become a series of rebirths and reunions.

I have experienced a rebirth of enthusiasm for my professional work as well as for writing.

I went swing dancing for my birthday after I returned to Vancouver in September; the faces have changed, but I enjoy dancing from time to time.

I occasionally see folks from the community garden (which I left in December 2016); things seem to be going well and the garden is being passed down to another generation of food security activists and community builders. I concentrate on my home garden and look forward to the day when I can live a complete permaculture life, earthship and all.

I have returned to practicing t'ai chi, something I once discovered as a deeply shutdown undergraduate student practicing my way out of asthma symptoms, practicing on my dying mother's apartment balcony and carrying on after moving out west.

I recently went to visit my old meditation centre as they were packing up to move to another location after over 40 years in the same storefront; I saw many old faces and my real self got reacquainted with them. I look forward to sitting with them again in the new year.

I consider my own neighbourhood a community; I have made friends with folks up and down the street, in the shops, cafes, restaurants, the local library branch where I get to be a library user for a change of pace. They were all there for me through transition, through the good times and bad, through the world's ups and downs and my own. I am grateful that they were there for me this year; I love you all very much.

You know what?

Happy New Year 2018! (with an exclamation mark!)