“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
-Zora Neale Hurston
I think very often of Hurston’s quote. And, in the last few weeks, even more than usual.
After a series of years that asked questions, 2019 was (at last) a year that offered some answers. I described 2019 on Instagram as a year “with blessedly rounded edges.” And it was. And maybe the lesson was a simple one, one that’s eluded me for 45 years: just let go a little. Let things come as they may. Everything, after all, passes. Both the good and the bad.
I’m grateful that 2019 was a year of relative smoothness, and whose ease offered some answers at last. I haven’t chosen a word this year, because none has presented itself. I’m also not a big resolution person.
But I do have Shawn Colvin in my head, right alongside Zora Neale Hurston (remember, years ago, when I wrote about Doctor Seuss and Mark Doty in the same breath?).
Steady On.
That’s what she keeps saying. So I will. And I’ll hope for another year that answers questions. But if it decides to ask them instead, what I know now is I’ll make it through.