last post of the year

How was 2019 for you?  Was it an annus mirabilis, or rather an annus horribilis?  Or perhaps neither?  Either way, it’s almost over and in our thoughts we are making room for the new.  As we eat our last breakfast of the year, go to bed one or two more times, wind down our work year, and pause on New Year’s Day, we turn to the future, a year full of potential.  

What do you envision?   What would you like to experience?  What are your dreams?  I updated my vision board, which I see every morning when I come up to the office.  Vision boarding is a powerful tool to clarify your thoughts and wishes, and help manifest change – here an earlier post on it.  

Without dreams and wishes the universe doesn’t know what you want, hence can’t help you manifest it.  We are entering a new decade, may as well dream up some cool wishes for 2020 and the coming decade.

On a global level I strongly wish for a greater momentum on working with and facing the reality of climate change.  On a community level I wish for greater communication and understanding across the many divides we have created.  On a personal level I wish for greater kindness and gratitude.

What wishes have you whipped up for 2020?

 

your own madeleine

Before my daughter went back to college after Thanksgiving, she made the spice Christmas cookies from her German great-grandmother, my grandmother, to take with her.  Yesterday, my son, away at grad school, asked for that same recipe.  Those particular cookies, like no others, evokes the taste of Christmas for us.  They conjure up visions of sugar plums so to speak, or rather the flavors of German Christmas.

 Cocoa powder makes the cookies deep dark brown, they are covered with white powdered sugar glazing, and they combine the chocolaty aroma of the cocoa with the intense spice tastes of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

my grandmother’s German spice cookies

my grandmother’s German spice cookies

In his famous madeleine episode Proust describes how eating the cake spontaneously resurrects childhood memories from somewhere deep down in his subconscious. 

For me my grandma’s spice cookies evoke not only the taste of Christmas but also memories of her; for my children, who did not get to know her, these cookies have become the most evocative of all Christmas tastes.  Now that they are older, they both make the cookies themselves to travel back memory lane to their younger selves and earlier Christmases.

What is your madeleine?  What memories does it bring back in you?