loving, the fireplace gentle and warm) (this was a party for 2, Beno and me, by the fireside). Part of our beautiful New Year's Party, just the two of us, was going over the datebook of the past year. Susie's dear visits, Janie, sometimes on her own and sometimes with Justin, Sunny and Shlomo, Raymie and Ursula and Jeremy, Mel and Pearl, Lil Blume, David Baskin, Adam's exuberant reaction to the forests and the climb to Mount Doug,and his renewal of deep and unique conversational connection with Murray and Eleanor, the way each one of the grandchildren has a unique connection with them, Yoni's beautiful visits and the day we were too daring in the rock climbing by the sea and both Adam and Yoni stood at the bottom of a rock cliff, their solid hands guiding me to a safe place, and so many many others. Reading Justin's Facebook post in which he dared to say that he had experienced personally good year (are we allowed to have had a personally good 2016?), I wondered what is the correct attitude.
And now, January 1, 2017, I wake up to the balancing, gorgeous writing of Marina Popova, my current mentor and guru for how to read a book in a shareful way, letting one's own world view swoosh to the reader through generous quotes from great authors' works, along with ample personal reflection.
"There are events in our personal lives and our collective history that seem categorically irredeemable, moments in which the grounds for gratefulness and hope have sunk so far below the sea level of sorrow that we have ceased to believe they exist. But we have within us the consecrating capacity to rise above those moments and behold the bigger picture in all of its complexity, complementarity, and temporal sweep, and to find in what we see not illusory consolation but the truest comfort there is: that of perspective."
Steinbeck writes so realistically, in 1941, of the species that we are.
Steinbeck writes on January 1, 1941:
Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion — as though we looked inward on our neuroses. And the thing we see isn’t very pretty… So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing — that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/30/john-steinbeck-new-year/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=f4f02a9ca5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-f4f02a9ca5-237779697&mc_cid=f4f02a9ca5&mc_eid=983df15d91
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Happy New Year 2017
Part of our beautiful New Year's Party (so wonderful, and Beno loved that everything went so gracefully, without a hitch, the jumbo lobster was possible to crack, the braised fennel kept its signature essence, the St. Paulin chambréd to perfection, the karaoke lusty and spirited, the reminiscing over 2016 buoyant and 
loving, the fireplace gentle and warm) (this was a party for 2, Beno and me, by the fireside). Part of our beautiful New Year's Party, just the two of us, was going over the datebook of the past year. Susie's dear visits, Janie, sometimes on her own and sometimes with Justin, Sunny and Shlomo, Raymie and Ursula and Jeremy, Mel and Pearl, Lil Blume, David Baskin, Adam's exuberant reaction to the forests and the climb to Mount Doug,and his renewal of deep and unique conversational connection with Murray and Eleanor, the way each one of the grandchildren has a unique connection with them, Yoni's beautiful visits and the day we were too daring in the rock climbing by the sea and both Adam and Yoni stood at the bottom of a rock cliff, their solid hands guiding me to a safe place, and so many many others. Reading Justin's Facebook post in which he dared to say that he had experienced personally good year (are we allowed to have had a personally good 2016?), I wondered what is the correct attitude.
And now, January 1, 2017, I wake up to the balancing, gorgeous writing of Marina Popova, my current mentor and guru for how to read a book in a shareful way, letting one's own world view swoosh to the reader through generous quotes from great authors' works, along with ample personal reflection.
"There are events in our personal lives and our collective history that seem categorically irredeemable, moments in which the grounds for gratefulness and hope have sunk so far below the sea level of sorrow that we have ceased to believe they exist. But we have within us the consecrating capacity to rise above those moments and behold the bigger picture in all of its complexity, complementarity, and temporal sweep, and to find in what we see not illusory consolation but the truest comfort there is: that of perspective."
Steinbeck writes so realistically, in 1941, of the species that we are.
Steinbeck writes on January 1, 1941:
Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion — as though we looked inward on our neuroses. And the thing we see isn’t very pretty… So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing — that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/30/john-steinbeck-new-year/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=f4f02a9ca5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-f4f02a9ca5-237779697&mc_cid=f4f02a9ca5&mc_eid=983df15d91
loving, the fireplace gentle and warm) (this was a party for 2, Beno and me, by the fireside). Part of our beautiful New Year's Party, just the two of us, was going over the datebook of the past year. Susie's dear visits, Janie, sometimes on her own and sometimes with Justin, Sunny and Shlomo, Raymie and Ursula and Jeremy, Mel and Pearl, Lil Blume, David Baskin, Adam's exuberant reaction to the forests and the climb to Mount Doug,and his renewal of deep and unique conversational connection with Murray and Eleanor, the way each one of the grandchildren has a unique connection with them, Yoni's beautiful visits and the day we were too daring in the rock climbing by the sea and both Adam and Yoni stood at the bottom of a rock cliff, their solid hands guiding me to a safe place, and so many many others. Reading Justin's Facebook post in which he dared to say that he had experienced personally good year (are we allowed to have had a personally good 2016?), I wondered what is the correct attitude.
And now, January 1, 2017, I wake up to the balancing, gorgeous writing of Marina Popova, my current mentor and guru for how to read a book in a shareful way, letting one's own world view swoosh to the reader through generous quotes from great authors' works, along with ample personal reflection.
"There are events in our personal lives and our collective history that seem categorically irredeemable, moments in which the grounds for gratefulness and hope have sunk so far below the sea level of sorrow that we have ceased to believe they exist. But we have within us the consecrating capacity to rise above those moments and behold the bigger picture in all of its complexity, complementarity, and temporal sweep, and to find in what we see not illusory consolation but the truest comfort there is: that of perspective."
Steinbeck writes so realistically, in 1941, of the species that we are.
Steinbeck writes on January 1, 1941:
Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion — as though we looked inward on our neuroses. And the thing we see isn’t very pretty… So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing — that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/30/john-steinbeck-new-year/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=f4f02a9ca5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-f4f02a9ca5-237779697&mc_cid=f4f02a9ca5&mc_eid=983df15d91
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