Good Omens

After my first morning meditation and oatmeal breakfast of 2025, I sat down for my ritual three games of Solitaire. The first is the most satisfying, as it requires intelligent choices beyond simply getting dealt good cards and I can usually win some 50-60% of the time. The second is more dependent on the lay of the cards, but still I can win some 30-40% of the time. The last is almost wholly luck driven and is the most challenging and I can only win some 5-10% of the time. If I win all three games in a row—which happens once or twice a year— I call it a Triple Crown and exult in its good omen.

 

So I’m happy to report that in my first three games of 2025, I won the Triple Crown! Made sweeter by my grandson Malik witnessing the victories. It’s a good beginning to the year.

 

Then last night our family game was the hilarious card game PIT. Six of us played it and we limited ourselves to six games. And miracle of miracles, each of us won one game!! Another good omen. Combined with my 8 for 8 beanbags in the hole a few days ago when I was practicing cornhole (a personal best), the signs are lining up that our fears and anxieties for what lies ahead may not be as horrific as we imagine, that the gods have our back. 

 

Well, we’ll see. The fact of the matter is that I had a rough couple of weeks at the end of what could be called a truly extraordinary, satisfying and joyful year (minus that date in November). Despite my hope that my dizzy diagnosis and exercises would help, it has been the most severe two weeks of the year. When I feel off, I eat more compulsively and then my belly swells and that bums me out and then I make the mistake of looking in the mirror without the generosity of feeling life’s wisdom has walked over my face and start to think about plastic surgery. Yesterday’s 6-mile-hike seemed to help and my daughters’ insistence that I drink two liters of water a day a simple remedy I’m willing to try. 

 

But it was Mary Oliver’s reminder in the poem below that helped lead me off the path of self-pity and remind me that the mere fact of the miracle of life is enough. A good manifesto for the year to come. 

 

                        I go down to the shore in the morning

                        and depending on the hour the waves

                        are rolling in or moving out       

                        and I say, oh, I am miserable

                        what shall—

                        what should I do? And the sea says

                        in its lovely voice:

                       Excuse me, I have work to do.