Raring to go

I am raring to go on this 2010 thing. I got my share of bruises in 2009. It wasn’t pretty — but bruises teach you a lot and I’m sure that in 2010 I’ll have a chance to put those lessons to work for me.

It was perhaps the best year and the worst year all rolled into one. On one hand, I took my harmonica playing from the walk-down dives and back streets right to some of the most prestigious stages in the world, like the San Francisco Jazz Festival. (If you told me that could have happened a year ago, I never would have believed you.)

On the other hand, 2009 was the year I realized that the laws of gravity really do apply to me – and I hit the ground hard on a couple of fronts. I’ll spare you the tedious details, but it’s fair to say that I was humbled and it hurt. Still, humility might be just what I needed.

It was as if in my 2009 reality and dreams collided. For much of my life, I have lived in a world of my own making. I floated in and out of the real world without much regard as to whether there was a window, a doorway or a wall separating one from the other. They were two separate worlds: what I dreamed of doing in one corner; what I was really doing in another.

But in 2009, these two forces came together giving me the mixed gift that is life. Some of my dreams came true in spectacular fashion, while in other areas reality descended upon me with a its heft.

It was as if I had made a sort of Faustian bargain: I would be granted my dreams in reality, but reality and its hardships would be my bitter windfall.

Still I wouldn’t go back. Hardship and pain are the logical price to pay for a dream coming true.

A far cry from the 3-page lists I used to make each January, my New Year’s resolution for 2010 is simple. It is to trust. Trust in my talents, trust in others so that we can work together to make beautiful things, trust in the world that it will always rise up to hold and embrace me, trust in life and trust in death.

It is a relief. I am certain that the letting go of expectation, the accepting of the flow of the years and days and of mysteries will make my life better in 2010. A dose of humility combined with an openness to the mystery and magic that are always swirling around us are a good recipe for a good and full life.

Welcome 2010!