Starting off the year with a clear sky

Traditionally, given that it's our older daughter's birthday, we spend New Year's Eve together with our girls and their friends and go out on the deck to watch all the fireworks at midnight. But this year, now that both girls are off and living on their own, they had better things to do than spend the evening with their parents, so we were looking forward to an early night -- which unfortunately didn't happen, as the neighbors chose some particularly loud varieties of fireworks this year (keeping us and our anxious dog very much awake).

My overactive maternal brain further complicated matters by waking up again at 3 and worrying about how the girls' evenings went. Silly, I know, now that they're well into their twenties, but it's the first time they've been out in the world, in the city, on a night when people are known for drunkenness etc. Eventually I was able to self-soothe enough to return to sleep (and, oh, don't those 3 am worries have a lot to say about how effective our meditative practices really are? So humbling...) but then I was up again at 5:30 to escort a friend up to Shaw Island.

But this was the view yesterday morning as I sat in the ferry line at Kingston, waiting to cross to the mainland. I have to say -- the colors fed my soul, and gave me what I needed to get through the long day -- driving to Anacortes, ferry to Shaw, dealing with a plumbing problem, ferry back to Anacortes, driving back to Edmonds, ferry back to Kingston, home by 9pm to collapse, exhausted into bed. The view, clear skies, the chance to spend time with good friends, and a beautiful new buddha to grace the Shaw retreat -- priceless!