“Everyday is magical.” ~Edie Autuori

I was texting my friend Edie last week and she was telling me about her upcoming trip and activities in Disney in Orlando.  My reply was that it sounded magical, thinking how clever I am that Disney is the most magical place on earth.  Her immediate response  was “Everyday is magical.”  For me it was one of those “aha” moments.  To digress for a moment, I am blessed (#very blessed) to have many wonderful people in my life.  Edie is one of the people who by chance, by good fortune, or just the way things were supposed to be in life, I had the honor of meeting and becoming her friend over twenty-five years ago.  In the past year or so she lost both her parents, sold her home and left Connecticut where she lived for over forty years with her husband Vinnie, and set up roots in a community in South Carolina.  A few months after moving she received some health news you don’t ever want to receive and dealt with it with grace and more positive attitude than I think I would have. In spite of some stuff life has thrown her way, she still views life as magical.

Edie and Linda

After some reflection (the kind of stuff that keeps you up at night thinking)  I wondered could I go into 2017 with this kind of attitude, and how could I make it last past my usual New Year Days resolution phase. (The one where I am going to go to the gym every day and that ends on January second).

Maybe it starts with “mindfulness”, more life in the present and not so much missing the past or making every day about the future.

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Perhaps it begins with being kinder to oneself, the gentle forgiveness that you would extend towards others, only reflected towards yourself.  I often beat myself up about being forgetful (a person’s name , something someone told me, the name of a movie or a song or something upcoming) and I would never, ever get upset with another person the way I do with myself.  Ever!

“Next time you think of beautiful things don’t forget to count yourself in!”

~ Author Unknown.

At the holidays I find I get more reflective than usual.  Memories of past holidays and traditions sometimes clutter my consciousness.  I get melancholy.  I miss the way that I believe that things were in my memory, which interferes with being present in the moment. I sometimes miss the “magic” of the moment.

“You can’t go back to how things were.  How you thought they were.  All you really have is… now.”

~ Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

The calendar has turned the page to 2017 and I can’t alter what I did or didn’t do in 2016.

Of course it’s still just January 1st as I write this so anything can happen.  2016 wasn’t a bad year, in reality it was a good year, though there were times when it felt a little out of control for me.   We saw many of our friends and families.  We traveled to Paris and Germany and made many memories along the way.  We have had lovely times with family and friends at the cape and Disney World.  I managed to take the train to Boston and a train and two subways to Brooklyn all by myself a couple of times.  I am learning to practice yoga a little at a time, though my body fights me at every position!   I took a meditation course and am proud to say that in the last 115 days I have meditated for 114 of them.  Yea me! Has it made me a calmer person, most likely not but it’s still an accomplishment.

Of course the best of 2016 was getting to spend time with my children and grandson.  Dan and Ann Taylor and Carter up and relocated in late June to North Carolina.  The beauty of face time and videos and pictures has made this a little easier to bear, and they traveled to Connecticut and to Cape Cod and we have traveled to North Carolina to see them.  Becca pulled up roots in Boston, sold her condo in less than twenty four hours and moved to North Carolina.  Skip and Becca did the driving and I was relegated to the back seat with the snacks.  We teamed up and got the job done!  Kristen got a full time corporate America job (still in video editing) and wait for it…. she loves it!! I love spending time with each and every one of my children (Ann Taylor included) and it really is magical that they are each their own individuals, creative, brilliant, and kind.  Of course the smartest and cutest grandchild in the world is currently our Carter who turned one in 2016.

Pure Joy

So how do I find the magic in every day?  This quote sums it up nicely.  

“Be present in all things and thankful for all things.” ~ Maya Angelou

Be thankful, be kind to others and don’t forget to be kind to yourself.  As the clock winds down the first day of the new year I take a deep breath and am happy to be here.  I look back and see that there was a lot of magic in 2016 and I feel confident that 2017 will bring more. I just need to look for it.

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” ~  Henry James