The Rear View Review
A glance at 2007 in review can be done by taking the first line (or two) from the first blog post of every month in the year. Read the whole post by clicking on the link embedded in the months, or read the lines together like stanzas in a found poem.
January
It seems I go out these days just for an excuse to show off my new purple knit scarf, or to eat cookies.
Do you know any of THESE bloggers?
March
Sometimes the waxing moon looks like a high heeled glass slipper with a missing heel, as it did this past weekend when I peered out of my window at midnight and wondered if Cinderella made it home in time.
April
The menu consisted of basmati rice, steamed greens, and venison sautéed with onions. The conversation mostly revolved around garden plans.
May
The night stars the moon.
June
Building community, brick by brick: At our April ceremony honoring elder women in our community, one of the women was addressing the crowd of about seventy about the importance of community. At one point, she looked directly at me and said, “I have one of Josh’s bricks. I use it as a doorstop!”
July
Turns out my dad had the best room in the house. In the past when I visited him and my mom I slept in the small third floor attic bedroom that could double for a sauna on hot summer nights. Now that he’s gone, my mother has set me up in his room on the second floor. Not only is it cool and breezy because of the windows cross ventilation, but I recently discovered that I can pick up free wireless from the bed.
August
Floyd Fest, our town’s yearly world music festival, is a people watchers paradise. My favorite part of the weekend festival – just six miles from my driveway on The Blue Ridge Parkway – is the cross section of people who attend it. Once on the sprawling grounds of open fields and wooded pathways, roles and differences tend to fall away, as people of all walks of life and ages speak the same language of “fun.”
September
My husband went to a Red Sox baseball game and all I got was this T-shirt.
October
While in Virginia Beach, we visited the A.R.E. complex (Association of Research and Enlightenment), founded to carry on the work of Edgar Cayce. We picked up wireless in their library and had lunch in the meditation garden by a pond. The pink water lilies were in bloom and large gold fish swam between them.
November
When something exciting happens and Joe hears me say, “Now that’s something to write home about!” he knows it means I’m going to blog about it.
December
My hand is walking across the page. It gets more exercise than my legs these days. But I fantasize about long walks through deserts where my life depends on my ability to do it.
Post notes: I most recently saw this done HERE. Let me know if you try this on your blog so I can come over to read. The 2006 Year Review is HERE.
January 1st, 2008 12:00 pm
Here’s my year in review:
http://bonniesbooks.blogspot.com/2008/01/year-in-review.html
Now I need to go read all of yours.
January 1st, 2008 1:03 pm
An excellent year in view.
Michele sent me here.
January 1st, 2008 1:38 pm
suxh a unique perspective – loved it sandy the best to you and yours in 2008
January 1st, 2008 1:38 pm
su ch a unique perspective – loved it sandy the best to you and yours in 2008
January 1st, 2008 2:24 pm
I always love when people do this..it’s interesting to see the commonalities and differences. I remember most of these!
Have a great New Year, Colleen!
January 1st, 2008 3:19 pm
I did this one year on my blog; it was loads of fun. Happy New Year, Colleen.
January 1st, 2008 4:12 pm
Martin and I went through the Blog last night just as the journal I’d intended it to be. It was so nice having our life right there for us and we’d say things like “Oh I forgot we did that” or “we had so much fun that day”. It was the perfect ending to our year and Martin summed it up by saying “The Blog would be worth it even if it were just for us.”
Happy New Year!
January 1st, 2008 4:13 pm
Happy New Year, Colleen!
January 1st, 2008 4:37 pm
I wish I could have eaten lunch in the ARE meditation garden with you, Colleen. I have a photo of myself taken in that garden in the 60’s!
January 1st, 2008 4:43 pm
It sounds like a happy year, and a life well-lived! Wishing you more of the same….
January 1st, 2008 5:16 pm
I did it last week and found it a nice way to meander through the year that was. Will enjoy following your meanderings, too, I’m sure!
Happy 2008, Colleen. May you and yours live it with full hearts and high hopes.
January 1st, 2008 5:51 pm
I loved reading this review…Mar, May and July paint such vivid pictures! Welcome to 2008 – and I am so going to look forward to a year of wonderful things!!
January 1st, 2008 8:12 pm
That’s an intriguing idea, but I suspect if I tried it, the results would be very boring. I tend to waffle for a few sentences before I get to the point.
Maybe I should take the first sentence of the second paragraph of each post 🙂
Michele says Happy New Year!
January 2nd, 2008 4:15 am
that was so interesting.
i was once a memeber of A.R.E. and used to check out some of the cirulating files to read. i also purchased some of the oils in the shop there and made all sorts of healing balms for myself. i recently told my husband about all of this. we plan to visit the grounds when we are in DC next, hopefully in the late spring. that trip, however, will depend on many other things in our lives. happy new year, colleen!
January 2nd, 2008 9:59 am
Wonderful summary walk thru.
January 3rd, 2008 1:50 am
What a wonderful post! My girlfriend said that she uses her blog as sort of a diary or journal so she can go back and check out what happened or how she felt over the last year. Thanks for taking us back thru your year! Have a wonderful 2008!
January 3rd, 2008 3:24 am
Happy New Year Colleen! Thank you for making my first year of blogging so memorable. I enjoyed/loved reading your rear-view review. I posted mine here: http://www.chicken-scratch.ca/2008/01/2007_year_in_review.html
January 3rd, 2015 2:36 pm
[…] ~ The following year review was done by excerpting the first line in one post of each month. You can click on the name of the month for a full accounting. January – Warming up for a game with my poet friend, Mara, I put the Scrabble box by the woodstove after it sat in the back seat of the car overnight. “I hope you’re dressed warm,” I said to her, holding the phone in one hand and pushing a log in the woodstove with the other. February – He replaced the belt on the vacuum cleaner for me. I left him a pink valentine bag on the kitchen table the night before with a card and a Sunkist naval orange inside. He responded with a conversation candy heart of his own. “Call Me,” it said. March – I’m full to capacity from working on a major, long piece of writing. Only flashes of poetry and sketches of words with no goals are allowed on today’s word diet. When I finally slowed down enough, and emptied myself of distraction, this is what I saw: Joe in his camouflaged overalls and wool hat, coming back from the mailbox, standing still in the middle of the dirt road driveway reading our finished tax forms with the dog at his feet, drinking from a puddle. April – “This is getting to be a real good smelling poetry reading,” said visiting poet Jim Webb in reference to the scent of popcorn coming from the front of the Floyd Country Store. May – For a small window of time in the spring, three blooms converge in a symphony of color in the corner of my yard. Dogwood, azalea, and baby irises come in one after the other, and for a week or two they co-exist together like the colorful layered fruit of an English trifle. June – At the beach Joe said to me, “I’m so glad you introduced me to naps, baths, and beaches.” Yeah, that about sums me up. July – The Blue Fairy makes wishes come true. It’s a tall order, but she can handle it. She walks on stilts. August – In this day of theme parks with rides like the Tower of Terror and Disney mouse and duck characters posing for photo-ops, I’m relieved there are still parks where real ducks can be fed and where you can ride around a weeping willow lined lagoon on a peddle boat with a giant swan on it. September – This is the time of year when I put on socks, and the butter in the butter dish is no longer the consistency of mayonnaise. October – Mud on potatoes dries to dirt in the sun, spilling from a bucket like a cornucopia overflowed. In the garden, a few tomatoes struggle to turn red but only make it to bright orange – the same color as the potted mums on the porch table, a $3 grocery store purchase for October’s yearly anniversary. November – Snow flurries. Cold wind whips. We pull up our goose down hoods. Joe shakes the tree like it’s a piñata full of gifts. Red apples tumble to the ground. I run to collect them like a girl on Christmas morning, marveling at the magic of each one. December – Things move fast in the world according to Bryce. One week he’s repeatedly sticking out his tongue, the next week he’s eating bananas. One week he’s teething on toys and shaking rattles, the next he’s all about his new Playschool bus. So I guess I’ll be trading in the rattle I bought him for Christmas for something with four wheels.___________2007 Rear View Review is HERE. […]