Celebrate the small things

My art piece called "celebration"

The new year is a time of reflection and planning. Last year I wrote a blog post for the new year and I am doing so again this year. I can feel the end of year and new year because the days get cooler and the nights and mornings get colder. The parang starts playing on the radio. The Christmas festivities usher in the end of the year. The stores start giving out calenders. The groceries bring out the butter cookies and the nuts you have to buss. Pastelles go on sale by the dozens.

Did you accomplish your goals in 2022? Did you learn new things? Did you unlearn some things? These are questions we should all be asking as we welcome the new year. The worst of the pandemic is over and the hype and panic and discomfort has passed. Humanity and the human spirit has overcome. I say a prayer for myself, my community and my country. May God guide us and bless us. May He give us strength and humility. The number 23 is my favorite so I am thinking 2023 will be my favorite year.

I will be 43 years old in 2023. I don't feel that old. I mean sometimes persons call me uncle so my maturity and wiseness is showing. I would describe the past year as productive and fruitful. My theme for 2023 would be celebrate the small things. I want to be rooted in gratitude and contentment. I want to face my tough moments with calm and smarts.

Alot of persons would be excited for the return of Carnival in Trinidad. This is us. This is who we are. I stay home but I can see and feel whats going on through social media. Carnival is art. Carnival is celebration. I have included my art piece called "celebration" in this blog post. Let the new year be about celebration. About winning. About beating the odds. I want to create more art and write more poetry in the new year.

I am thankful. It is too easy to take for granted what we have and how far we have come. The birds chirping in the morning. The cup of orange juice in the morning. That fresh feeling from a good night's sleep. A smile and compliment from a stranger. Armed with a heart full of gratitude we can take on the days and the world. I celebrate life and I view every day as an opportunity to pursue our goals and dreams.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why does the Earth hum?

Image
This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns I found an article but before I started reading I devised my own answer. The answer can be found in us humans. Humans = hum + ans(swer). I will talk about the swer part later on. We humans create the hum of the earth. Do we want the hum of the earth to be one of painful sorrow or one of blissful contentment? We have a responsibility to take care of the Earth. Take care of the environment. Live in harmony with nature. To be mindful housekeepers for future generations. The article explains the hum scientifically and states that the hum of the earth is outside the hearing range of humans. The article explains that the hum is created by the ocean waves with the seafloor and Earth's crust. We may not be able to hear the hum of the Earth literally but we should be able to hear the hum of the Earth figuratively. Thich Nhat Hahn, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and meditation master, when asked by some of his pupils, "Sir,
Read more

What is an equation for life?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns https://youtu.be/5OzZqJcltpM I was watching this youtube video today called "It's just a coincidence" and I went down a rabbit hole afterwards and made a few notes The Srinivasa Ramanujan magic square was most fascinating. What is special about the number 139? My research led me to this quote "Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous" - Albert Einstein I noticed that the name Einstein has ein twice. I learnt about the Einstein tile (nothing to do with Einstein. Just so happens that ein stein is German for "one stone" or "one shape") So Einstein = one + st + one Which led me to this quote "We still do not know (one) thou(s)and(t)h of (one) percent of what nature has revealed to us" - Albert Einstein st separates thou and h (see later thouGh-ts) I could not find many quotes by Ramanujan but I found this commonly repeated one. "An equation for me has no meaning
Read more

Where does this door lead?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns It is 333pm on a Sunday afternoon. I was just watching a youtube short with Kes and I learnt about his "Man with no door" album. He was inspired literally by a man who he found that lived with no door to his house. In an interview Kes says, "He just lives free" and "I felt like that creatively at the time. I am the man with no door." This is how I want to be when I write my next book called Freedom. Freedom can easily be written as freedoor in the context of the beginning of this chapter. I found a bed and breakfast in Poland called Pokoje FreeDoor. Pokoje means rooms in Polish but no idea what FreeDoor means. I will email them. I once created an art piece where a door was created from the letters of the word love and I captioned it "love opens doors". Through a Google search of "door 333" I found the https://doorsoftallinn.com/ website. A beautiful collection of ornate an
Read more

What is love?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns It is 4am in the morning and I was thinking about what to write about. "What is love?" popped in my head and I ignored it initially and then I began seeing posts about love while scrolling through facebook. Then it occured to me that I could probably collect a page or two full of these and share them in my book as an answer to the question. This is proof that love surrounds us. We just have to pay attention. Love is the answer. ❤️ Love is not what you say. Love is what you do. True love never dies. It only gets stronger with time. No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. (Charles Dickens) Sometimes miracles are just kind people with good hearts. Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. (Immanuel Kant) Love does not need to be perfect. It just needs to be true. Kind words dont cost much. Yet they accomplish much. (Blaise Pascal) The only way to do gr
Read more

What is a beautiful word?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns I woke up early and took a bath. I changed into comfortable clothing and I said my prayers and I laid down waiting for the rain they said we would get after midnight. While I was bathing a question entered my head. What is the most beautiful word? Beauty is subjective and there is beauty in all words. There are fancy sounding words and words from foreign languages and hardly heard of words and words that are hard to pronounce. There are simple words and words with little fanfare and words of frustration and words that make us giggle. There are all kinds of words that are beautiful in their own way. Napoleon Hill has told us that, "The most beautiful words in the world may well be that sweet, old-fashioned two-letter word, we." A simple word that signifies unity and connection. For me a beautiful word is a word that can express "peace of mind". I discovered the Swedish word lugn and I fell in love with i
Read more