The Year of the Horse

On President's Day I went for a brisk walk through my neighborhood and noticed all the Christmas decorations still on display -- a withered wreath hanging on a front door, a poinsettia flanked by two tall red candles in a window, and even a miniature tree all a-twinkle with tiny lights.

One good thing about getting older is I'm not so quick to scoff at other people as I once was. So what if the time to haul off the holly has long since past? I confess I was a little sad myself when I put my own decorations away on New Year's Day. As my fingers plucked each ornament off the tree (my son's paper fish with the glitter glue smile, my daughter's ballerina figurine, and the pale elf my grandmother once gave to me), I felt some tugs in the vicinity of my heart strings. After all, by officially saying the holidays were over and that 2014 had begun, I had to face the fact that my son who was once happy to sit at a table and do art projects with me is now 23 and my daughter will be starting college in the fall.

Now it's the beginning of March already. I've put the relics of the past away, and I'm grasping the mane of this year of the horse as it gallops off into undiscovered territory.