A New Year, Wooden Spoons, and Dreaming of What Might Be | Red Rover Hanging Art Mobile by Mark Leary Designs

Mobile: Red Rover in Tappan

On a new year
“But does anything other than the number change?” asked mouse.
That, my dear,” replied fox, “is entirely up to you.”

Thoughts while making
8:51 p.m.
Does this sound familiar: You’re a kid. It’s New Year’s Eve. Pots and pans have been laid out on the kitchen table. Big wooden spoons, too.

8:56 pm.
One by one, you and your siblings step up and arm yourself: one pot or one pan, one spoon. There were five of us.

8:58 p.m.
Nervous giggles. Pajamas rustling.

8:59 p.m.
You all file quietly out the door, five pairs of little feet noiseless along the walkway. Turning the corner, down the driveway, right to the edge of the sidewalk.

9 p.m.
The sign is given, and all at once, the banging begins. Hooting and hollering. Metal and wood.

Primal screams of children lifting like wild things calling into winter’s starlit night.

A year’s hurts and pains, bads and awfuls given notice that their time is done and sent on their way.

9:01 p.m.
10 little feet quickly scrambling from whence they came. Neighborhood dogs barking.

9:05 p.m.
Martinelli’s apple cider to toast the new year in New York from Scripps Ranch in San Diego.

By 9:30 p.m.
Fast asleep to forget what was and dream of what might be.

Wishing you a year touched by love and light, where the hurts-and-pains, bads-and-awfuls are shooed away into the cold night of yesterday, making space for dreams made real, fireflies and campfire sparks.

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