Day One 2021

January 1, 2021. Since Christmas, I have spent quite a bit of my time reflecting, and not just about the year 2020 which is just too overwhelming. Instead my reflections have been focused on this journey I’ve been navigating since September 2018.

I felt compelled to revisit the first blog I posted on October 13, 2018 . Interestingly enough, in that post I was reflecting on my experience with cancer in September 1999, and I included a quote that resonated how I was feeling at the time:

It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge an elephant, but we can’t dodge a fly.

Josh Billings

I’m not sure why, but it was then that I decided to try including a quote in almost every post I made. It kind of felt like dotting an “i” or crossing a “t” or frosting a cake.

So today on this day when I imagine we are all doing a bit of reflecting, I thought it might be fun to post a chronology of all the quotes that have found their way onto my blog so far. It’s a different perspective of where my head’s been at over the course of this crazy ride.

2018

1. October
   • It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge an elephant, but we can’t dodge a fly. -Josh Billings
   • There are no facts, only interpretations. —Freidrich Nietzsche
   • Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. —Voltaire
2. November
   • Time to move on. Time to get going. What lies ahead I have no way of knowing. Under my feet, babe, the grass is growing. Time to move on. Time to get going. —Tom Petty
   • A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. —James Russell Lowell
   • We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are. —Thomas Wolff
   • To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. —St. Thomas Aquinas
   • If everyone helps to hold up the sky, then one person does not become tired. —Tshi proverb
   • All you have to do is look straight and see the road. And when you see it, don’t sit looking at it—walk. —Ayn Rand
   • When I count my blessings, I count you twice. —Irish proverb
3. December
   • We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story. —Mary McCarthy
   • The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. —Buddha
   • Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. —Mary Jean Irion

2019

1. January
   • A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. —Maya Angelou
   • Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers. —Robert Ingersoll
   • Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. —Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
   • The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. —Dolly Parton
   • The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next. —Mignon McLaughlin
   • Failure is impossible. —Susan B. Anthony
   • Home is the nicest word there is. —Laura Ingalls Wilder
   • Apparently I just had to share this one again. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. —Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
2. February
   • Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s about learning to dance in the rain. —Vivian Greene, courtesy of Tom and Karen Babcock
   • The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
   • If we don’t believe the things we put on our agendas will come true for us, then there’s no hope for us…We’ve got to believe in our beautiful impossible blueprints. —Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
   • Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward, after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s a cha-cha. —Robert Brault
3. March
   • Click your heels together three times and say ‘There’s no place like home’ and you’ll be there. — Glinda the Good Witch of the North – The Wizard of Oz
   • Our union is like this: You feel cold, so I reach for a blanket to cover our shivery feet…You ache with loneliness one night so much you weep, and I say here is a rope, tie it around me, I will be your companion for life. — Hafez
   • It is in the shelter of each other that people live. —Irish Proverb
   • The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. —J.K. Rowling
   • The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. —Alice Walker
4. April
   • Another duplicate. I must have needed to use it again to 100% believe it.
     The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. —J.K. Rowling
   • A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. —Sir Winston Churchill
   • Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. — Martin Luther King Jr.
   • To make the best use of what is in your power, take the rest as it happens. —Epictetus
   • Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom? But we hope it; we know it. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5. May
   • Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it. —Ninon de Lencios
   • Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life. —Lucius Annaeus Seneca
   • Hope smiles on the threshold of the year to come, whispering that it will be happier. –Alfred Lord Tennyson
   • You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you. —Mary Tyler Moore
6. June
   • It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the grain of sand in your shoe. —Proverb
   • Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard. —Anne Sexton
   • Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow. —Alice Mackenzie Swaim
7. July
   • Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. —Steve Jobs
   • It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth—and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up—that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had. —Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
8. August
   • Just trust yourself, and then you will know how to live. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
9. September
   • Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy. —Anne Frank
10. October
    • The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides. —Barbara Kingsolver – Animal Dreams
11. November
    • Just where you are—that’s the place to start. —Pema Chödrön
    • I feel a very unusual sensation—if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude. –Benjamin Disraeli
12. December
    • When you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it. —Oprah Winfrey

2020

1. January
   • Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim. —Nora Ephron
2. February
   • Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I knew, there was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too. And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses. Oh, won’t you stay. We’ll put on the day. And we’ll talk in present tenses. —Joni Mitchell, from song Chelsea Morning
   • It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.—Sally Kempton
   • Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. —Robert Brault
3. March
   • Our strength is often composed of the weakness we’re damned if we’re going to show. —Mignon McLaughlin
   • The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now. —Thich Nhat Hanh
4. April
   • In spite of ourselves we’ll end up a-sittin’ on a rainbow. Against all odds, honey we’re the big door-prize. We’re gonna spite our noses right off of our faces. There won’t be nothin’ but big ol’ hearts dancin’ in our eyes. —John Prine, In Spite of Ourselves
5. May
   • Life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties—which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return? —Margot Fonteyn
6. June
   • Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help, shall all be saved. — Jane Goodall
7. July
   • The best way out is always through. —Robert Frost
8. September
   • When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on. —Franklin D. Roosevelt
9. November
   • Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming. —David Bowie
10. December
    • This is the real work. Every day, getting up, loving the world again. —Flying Edna

2021

I am hopeful that the new year will provide us all positive and magical changes. That we will enjoy good health and stay safe. That the fog we’ve been living in will lift, and we will enjoy each other’s company without fear. It seems we all have healing to do of one kind or another.

One thing that will remain unchanged in 2021 is my appreciation for you—your support, your kind words, your understanding, your encouragement, your positivity, your belief, your loyalty, your friendship, your love. I’m beyond grateful you chose to follow me on this journey. What a gift it is that we can still lift each other up in spite of all that separates us these days.

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind. —Lionel Hampton