The 2023 Rear-View Review
The following is a year end review using Loose Leaf excerpts that were taken from each month of 2023. Click the link if you want to read the post in its entirety or to view accompanying photos.
January – We rang in the New Year with a sold-out dance party at Dogtown Roadhouse last night. There were lights, glitter, songs and champagne. We got down on the dance floor like a Times Square ball drop. We took a cup of kindness with old friends and new for auld lang syne. –About Last Night
February- This is the Scrabble game I played with a migraine aura and seven one point vowel tiles. Nah Nah got played twice as if it were a taunt. I learned that “Ruth” was a real word that means “empathy,” as in the opposite of “Ruthless.” Someone added a “T” and made it “truth.” – A Migraine Aura
March – There was a lot of green to be seen at McDaniel’s Tavern at Buffalo Mountain Brewery last night and a new brew called Lucky Charm. I was already lucky because I had just come from The Great Clover Hunt with Muriel Alderman at Floyd’s Center for the Arts and found my first wild four-leaf clover. –The Pub and St. Patrick Go Together Like Corned Beef and Cabbage
April – Nashville is like a cowboy’s New Orleans. I couldn’t help thinking of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash singing Girl From the North Country on Dylan’s Nashville Skyline album when I saw the Nashville skyline for the first time….. Nashville Skyline –
May – The Moon Blinked – An eyelash of new moon / warmed to a shine / when the moon broke its gaze / the night went blind
June – Our brains have algorithms like Facebook’s content ranking. They give us more of whatever we spend time on. –Best-kept Secrets
July – Near the end of the Dodd Creek Trail, my friend Juniper and I discovered this newly-added rosy park bench where we sat and did some bird watching, which was mostly bird listening. She pulled up a birdsong app on her phone and we played one of my favorite songbirds, a wood thrush. Soon all the nearby wood thrush in the woods came to answer the call! – From Wood Thrush Plays
August – Remedy for Grief – Go to the beach / Wear purple / Sit on a sidewalk / Skip to the mailbox / Dance to Steve Winwood’s Higher Love / Rub a genie’s lamp / Buy postage stamps with tulips on them / Color in your doodles with highlighter pens / Dream about roses / Press four-leaf clovers / Kiss and tell the whole truth.
September – I’m never going to have an avatar and am never going to wear stiletto heels. If you want to know me, read Fredrick the Mouse by Leo Lionni. – From Hold on to Your Hat
October – Whenever I visited my hometown peninsula on the South Shore of Boston, I would go out near sunset and run or bike from the ocean to the bay to watch the moon rise and the sun set in the sky together. Same thing at the Saddle Parkway overlook. Everywhere you turn it is beautiful to see. – From Best Sunset Evah!
November – I remember asking my parents as they were aging, ‘what do you do all day?’ Now I ask myself. I don’t buy into the elder years being the best time of life. It has its pluses but also has loss. Instead of crossing things I want to do off my bucket list, I’m also crossing off things I don’t have to do. For me, it’s not about living life to its fullest, it’s about living, and that means lots of maintenance, keeping things simple and being present for the small beauties and joys of life. – From Homebody
December – Stripes of first snow / Separate winter from fall / Highlight and shading / Pique like whipped frosting / Black and white stripes / Outline December / Split in two / Like winter half-moons – From Drawing the Line
______Read last year’s Rear View Review HERE.