It’s 9:12pm New Years Eve Night. My husband is watching football in his office. My parents are upstairs watching what they watch. Dick Clark maybe. Isn’t he dead? Hopefully not.
Ellie is asleep, miraculously, through the fireworks the neighbors are setting off. I don’t know what it is about Texans and loud, gawd-awful noises but they love them. Anything that makes a loud BOOM makes them all very happy. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Ugh.
I went outside thinking, I’m being bombarded by explosions I might as well enjoy the show. So I take Ellie’s monitor and my phone, slip into my rain boots and step outside. It has warmed up considerably and is actually warmer now at 9pm than it was even a few hours earlier. I’m standing in the cool night, the rain not falling exactly but kind of misting on my skin.
I see Toby coming up the driveway from the street. Poor Toby did we leave him outside!? Not Toby, Toby is back in the house snuggled under a blanket, probably already asleep. The way it moves I think no, it must be a large, fat cat. It gets closer. Coming right toward me so I think it must be scared and lost and wants to come inside where it’s quieter and where there’s food.
It isn’t a dog or a cat I realize as it gets closer, it’s a fox. A small, scared fox. She (he?) seems to see me standing there and veers off into the brush beside the driveway. Fireworks must be scaring every small animal within 500 miles. And then I think…what other animals might it be scaring out of hiding and toward me in the rainy night? I hear other rustling in the brush and think I see the tan hide of a deer. Or a coyote? And….it’s back inside for this city dweller.
Still, the moment is mine. One special moment where I shared the rainy night with another scared, wild animal. Or possibly several.
Those special moments we share, unexpectedly, with some of nature’s closest children seem to transcend us. Take us out of ourselves. Reminds us there is a whole world out there we are interconnected with and that we are affecting whether we are aware of it or not.
Tomorrow is next year. What do we hope for ourselves for the coming year? I hope I can make my way through this year softly. I hope the disturbance my life stirs up in the ocean of the world is a positive one, and I leave love in my wake. #holyhippiehoo-ha? Maybe. It is my sincere desire to reach beyond my own insecurities and faults to make the world a better place. Or at least, to make it shiny in the corner where I am.
Mother Theresa said ‘There are no great acts, only small acts done in great love.’
I hope I can remember to love even when I feel like I need more of it myself, to reach out and help when I feel like I need it more, and to have the courage to live my best life.
And to everyone else I love, Happy New Year and happiness, health, healing, and humor to you all. Be safe, and if you can’t be safe, have fun. If you can’t be safe OR have fun…well, I can’t help you there. Go hug a puppy or something.
xo,
Ange
Angela Yeh - Fantasy Author. Dragon Enthusiast. Optimist. 
And a Happy, Happy New Year to you and Bill and Ellie. (Thanks for Grimaldi's, it was wonderful.)
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Just started reading your blog 🙂 Keep them coming girl! Love u.
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