Wrapping It Up

It is the last day of 2024 and my last post of the year. An author once talked about writing as finding “a home for one’s happenings” and that is an apt description of this Blog. Remarkable to think that I’ve been doing this for fourteen years. And while I’m at it with statistics, I’ve written 4,391 posts and have accumulated 979,349 (almost a million!) page views. The last three years I’ve written 365 posts each year to average one a day and this year yet more— 380, to be exact. Not only am I not running out of things to say, I’m coming up with more! My “followers” have held steady these past few years around 242 and thanks to each and every one of you. 

 

Speaking of "followers," I wondered today if any of you have been reading these posts either regularly, occasionally or once in a blue moon since their inception. It would be remarkable to think that this might be so over the past fourteen years. If by chance that’s true, I would be delighted to hear from you in an e-mail: Goodkindg@aol.com. Has it really been worthwhile to follow my story and if so, why? Just curious. Meanwhile, I believe I’ll continue to use this venue for as long as it’s available to house what happens and bring it into some kind of meaning, either personal or collective or both, through the power of language.

 

I write this having just complete a 6-mile dusty hike in the Indio Badlands with my wife and two daughters, giving the grandkids a break and trusting them to entertain themselves civilly while we were gone. They did and we enjoyed some adult time. Back home to the kids alive and well and a refreshing well-earned soak in the hot tub washing off the dust of the world. (Well, physically in the shower before the soak, but metaphorically in the soothing heated waters.). I noted how 13-year-old Zadie and even 9-year-old Malik joined in the adult conversation at such a mature level. It’s a bittersweet goodbye to their childhood and hello to their maturing selves. 

 

We all hiked yesterday, played some basketball in Old Town La Quinta and treated ourselves to Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Cones. I cooked a satisfying fajita dinner and we howled with hilarity playing the evening game of Salad Bowl, a mixture of Taboo and Charades. Tonight will be the card games Pit and Spoons with Talia’s boyfriend Matt joining us for the first time. I hope to close the last evening of 2024 with the telling of a folk tale to carry us into the New Year. 

 

Sometime in early December, I made a list of all the workshops I had taught, places traveled, people visited, books published, concerts performed, film showings of The Secret Song, TV series watched, books read or listened to, as well as other notable things like getting hearing aids, going to a poetry retreat, biking in Slovenia. In spite of November, it was a fine year and I’m grateful beyond measure for the strength, energy and health to keep doing all these things I love so much. Many difficulties lie ahead, both personal (my daughter’s divorce, my ongoing vestibular dizziness, the difficulties of aging) and collective (the nightmare of the election results). And much to look forward to as well—teaching in Brazil, Hong Kong, Ghana, Carmel Valley and a possible bike trip to France. 

 

And so the Wheel of Fortune turns round and round, now six hours away from its next spin. Wishing all of you the best of health, happiness and healing and once again, thank you for reading. May we all “drink a cup of kindness yet for the sake of auld lang syne.”