a year begins...

As I am standing out in the fog holding the lead rope of my daughter's pony, watching her munch wet grass, I am thinking about the year ahead of us. I am also thinking about the year just passed - so many details that can't be recalled. So many laughs, conversations, outings, and episodes that I swore I would remember forever this time - have flown the coop - straight out of my head - lost, in fact, forever.

As we sat in the small Chinese food restaurant last night, I watched my kids laugh and talk with each other and it struck me how quickly this is all going, - this year, this childhood, this life. I kept trying to call up memories made in 2009 as we sat surrounded by other tired farm families at our tiny table waiting for pot stickers and pink chicken (sweet and sour chicken's given name by RT, my son, when he was just a sprout.) I tried closing my eyes. I tried looking out the steamy windows. I tried watching RT and Bee... nothing. Buried. Totally covered up by emails, voice mails, messages, worries, doubts, appointments, meetings, and other useless crap. Right then and there I decided to remember the year 2010. Remember the tiny, significant stuff. The belly laughs, the porch talks, the late night star-gazing. From the taste of warm summer blackberries picked on our lane to the sound of the ladies clucking and scratching in the chicken palace. All of it. And I will write it down here. For my kids to read. For my husband to read. And for me to remember. A year accounted for.

I just hope I remember I've started this...