Years Come and Go. Plastic Bags are Forever.

Good riddance to 2011.  It was not my best year.  But for a “glass half full” person such as I, I look forward to carrying with me all that did work from this year to the next.

My children continue to grow, mature and amaze me.   The feedback I hear most often is how well-mannered and behaved they are.  You can’t buy that.  For sure, I see the exceptions, but overall, I could not be happier with the four children I am lucky enough to call my own.

I have an awesome family that began pretty small in Worcester, Massachusetts and which gets a little smaller through years of “attrition”.   Though we are separated by the states, my sisters and I grow closer, and funnier, each year.  When we are lucky enough to come together, as we did in a mini sister-reunion in the spring, we pretty much laugh at everything.

My friends proved once again that I am blessed to have the very best people in my life.   How many people can claim as I do, that friends give me 95 percent of the consideration all of the time?  Call me selfish, but at least I appreciate how lucky I am.

My house in the Syracuse University neighborhood remains a refuge from the world and a gathering place for the people I love.   This year I met the grandson of the first occupant of my home, built in 1926.  I have now met all three owners, or their descendants, who lived in this house, which is rare for a structure 86 years old.

The physician who built the house, Doctor Moore,  lived here from 1926 until 1948.   From 1948 until 1963 the Pomperoy family called this place home and I was delighted to meet the silver-haired bearded gentleman from the North Country who pulled into my driveway two years ago.  He spent his teenage years here and gave me marvelous information about the remodeling that had been completed before the family moved in in ’48.   Finally, the Dickinson family of Dewitt owned the house from 1963 until I bought it in 1994.  Imagine just four owners in an 86 year old house.  This gracious place encourages people to really settle in for a time.

After the Labor Day Storm of 1998 I planted a showy sugar maple tree in my front yard to take away the sting of losing 14 magnificent oaks.   With every passing year the maple becomes a larger flame of vivid autumn color.  With the leaves down for another winter now, I can see the plastic grocery bag that landed in an updrift of wind in summer of 2010 is none the worse for wear.  When you hear these bags have a thousand years in them, believe it.  In spite of the winds, the snow, the heat and the battering of branches and twigs, that plastic bag shows no sign of giving up its perch.  And now I’ve noticed it has some company in the form of a black plastic bag nearby.

I suppose I should be annoyed that people let trash blow around like that and some of it lands in my trees, but there’s something comforting about that stupid plastic bag stuck in the maple.  It’s an odd form of permanence, resilience, and strength, all qualities I admire in people, on display in my front yard.

Happy New Year, one and all.  Let 2012 be all that you dream it can be.