Three things from DAH. 

DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. This is the 100th time I've done this.

First up this week, January …  
Tomorrow will be January 2022. Oh, my. How our days fly by, at least in retrospect. I wish a Happy New Year to any who read these words … and to any who don't. Why limit the good wishes? I just read a short piece about gentle ways to begin a new year. I chose three to share with you:

1. Give yourself the gift of a slow first week.
2. Donate something.
3. Be of service.

Despite the likelihood that tomorrow will be much like today, many of us share a desire to begin a new year with a bang. Me? I'm aiming to step gently into 2022. The demands of January (and February and on) will rattle me soon enough. Let's be gentle with ourselves tomorrow.
Where do the names of our months come from?

Second up this week, Jubilation …  
I'm still planning to pursue joy in the new year. But, I think jubilation is my objective for 2022. I'm hoping, seeking, joy all the time. But jubilation suggests triumph and great rejoicing. In the new year I'm shooting for jubilation, sometime, some way. Who knows where or when, not in the bittersweet manner of that song, but more with a somethin's coming Sondheimian optimism. "Somethin's comin', I don't know what it is, but it is gonna be great!" I shall live with great hope, singing in jubilation at some point in 2022.
Music, Emotion, and Well-Being

Third up this week, Juicy …  
"Amazing tastes and smells wait in wildness …  sensuous experiences may show you beauty in places you’d found ugly" (from the linked post below). I like ripe. Yes, there's delight to be found in tart and tangy, but ripe and juicy call to me. Youth, young fruit, young everything, is often quick and sharp, tart and tangy. Ripeness comes with maturity, juicy flavors and experiences. A delightful meal, with delightful wines, suits me best, progressing from tangy to juicy, the life journey we're all taking (if we're lucky). 
In Praise of Imperfect Fruit

And a bit more:

Burning the Old Year, by Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   
lists of vegetables, partial poems.   
Orange swirling flame of days,   
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn't,   
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   
only the things I didn’t do   
crackle after the blazing dies.


And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …  

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it. 

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