New Year’s Wishes, Resolutions and Musings - Part Two

Friday I shared my New Year’s wishes and resolutions. Today – some musings to start the New Year right.

Words of Wisdom from My Mother

With the New Year, which brings a sense of renewal and hope, I’ve been in a contemplative mood. I remembered some of the things I learned from my mother that I'm still trying to put into practice.

Like I said Friday, “I’m a work in process!”

Mother had a wacky sense of humor. Our rec room was decorated with paintings of poker-playing dogs and plaques with pithy sayings. One which comes to mind as I sort out my priorities for the New Year is, “The Hurried-er I Go, the Behind-er I Get.” Yup, that’s me.

The basement room was also decorated with the first oil painting I ever did. Mother had it framed and prominently displayed above the sofa. It was a bleak painting of an albatross circling a becalmed ship (inspired by Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”).

Mother also had a passion for opera and poetry. Perhaps that’s why she was so fond of my albatross painting. She would frequently burst into an aria from Carmen or stanzas from “The Rubaiyat” of Omar Khayam, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson or these words from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

Mother died young, at age 54. I’m ten years older than that, but still trying to live some of things she taught. I must be a slow learner. That brings to mind another one of her tacky plaque sayings, “Ve get too soon oldt; und too late smart.”