I remember walking beneath an emerald canopy in Arashiyama, west of Kyoto. A bamboo grove so lush it was hard to see the light sometimes but the sun finds its way.
Walk too deep and what came before and what comes after looks about the same: a forest of green shoots. A labyrinth of leaves.
You can only keep walking the path. There’s no turning back.
There is meaning to our memories, more often than not. After all, New Year’ Eve is traditionally a time for reminiscing and for resolutions. For looking back at the past year and planning for the one to come. What came before and what comes after.
I could reflect on how I have gotten stronger this year, thanks to a blend of bodyweight training and kettlebell complexes. I could recount my new habit of taking morning walks in our garden, saying hello to plantain squirrels, lime butterflies and pink-necked green pigeons.
I could recall flying over the Southern Patagonian Ice Field or the dance of dim sum carts in Hong Kong or many a hot, proud summer in sweltering Bangkok. (These didn’t happen this year, unfortunately. No matter.)
I could celebrate blogging regularly for 20 years (and counting). I could bemoan my lacklustre frequency of late. (Ah, well.)
I could even share my plans to return to a schedule of daily posting, the way I used to before I decided to embark on my Great Blog Clean Up (which is a whole other story).
But none of that matters, not really.
We nurse our regrets, we toast our wins. We tell ourselves we will do better in the next 365 days.
Let’s not, for a change. Let’s stay in this moment, right now, and enjoy it for what it is.
Tomorrow – a brand new year – will arrive whether we will it or not. Today we still have this time to take it all in, to be thankful and to delight in what is just enough, in what is just right.