In honor of the new “Start Something New” gallery over on Apple, I’ve dredged up this classic from 1998. Yup, 1998.
From today’s Writer’s Almanac, remembering J.R.R. Tolkien:
He came across an Old English poem by Cynewulf, which contained a couplet that fascinated him: “Hail Earendel brightest of angels / Over Middle Earth sent to men.”
and today, I pause with this favorite quote, especially apt in the dark turn of the year, to remind us that evil and darkness is not the entire world and that we have the ability to hold it back with hope, goodness and action.
…the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.
~~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Book II, The Land of Shadow.
Here I sit, reading and editing and I come across this:
“I do know for sure that if you let yourself be open to possibilities, many things become more than possible. Wishing for something doesn’t make it happen but knowing that you want something sure can help.” — Mary Beth Frezon, novel-in-progress
Which went very nicely with Sara Genn’s letter at The Painter’s Keys today
There were so many drawings there was no more wall. I asked her if she wanted to show them. She said she did, very much, but felt that she might not be ready — that she needed to get better. Her heroes were great ones, her aspirations for the quality of her own work admirably stratospheric. I balanced a knee on her bedspread and pushed my nose up to the story, working from left to right, in rows. “Maybe there’s a creative imperative to share, a nudge for momentum, a middle finger to fear, to throw the proverbial spaghetti at the wall and see if it sticks? What about just getting it out there?”
A few months later my friend was standing in a nearby gallery space, her drawings framed and hung and in her arms, published copies of the first installment of her story. An intimate crowd of witnesses toasted her output. “How do you feel?” I asked. “Good,” she said, “I’ve got the next dozen chapters written and pencilled in, waiting for me at home.”
I’m borrowing this from Fiona Ritchie’s website because it’s not often I see mention of our one real family New Year tradition:
Open the Door
Open the door for the auld year,
It is the pairtin-time
Open the door for the new year
And lat the bairn win hame.Bundle your winter’d joy and grief
On the back o’ the year that’s dune:
Open your hert for the new life
And lat the bairn come in.by William Soutar
Title: Open the Door
Source: The Poems of William Souter, Scottish Academic Press, 1988
Came the moment and I went down and opened the front door to let the old year out and the new year in.
I’d been upstairs awhile fiddling with and reading my NaNoWriMo story and enjoying it while watching the last hour of the year tick by. I’d gone down and gotten my little plate of snack stuff earlier but hadn’t nibbled too much when the clock struck midnight.
So I went down and opened the door and then stepped outside. There had been a lot of local fireworks earlier but now it was still and quite cold. The half-or-so moon was up there, shining down through a light layer of clouds, along with some brighter stars. I stood in the cold and quiet and a little wind came up and rustled the leaves in the yard. I looked at the shadows on the lawn and then up at the moon and said my happy new year to the world.
Then it was back to the relative warmth of the house and the definite warmth of my bed where two cats waited for me. Molly marched right up and nosed her way under the covers. Razzie wandered off after a few minutes but he’ll be back. I poured a little port into a glass and had a nibble of cheese and came here to wish you, all my dear readers, a very happy, healthy new year filled with just enough fun and adventure to keep it interesting.
To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream, not only plan but also believe.
