New Year, Big Plans, Small Joys
A scrapbook of happiness built on simple moments of wonder.
Big resolution pledges.
Big travel plans.
Big work ambitions.
Big fitness commitments.
Big hobby launches.
My cat never made big plans, and she seemed to enjoy life just fine.
The new year is about to break over the horizon. I’ve got big plans for 2025; I’m sure you do as well. It’s fun to imagine where we will be in another 12 months if these campaigns find achievement. Some may, some will not, but experience tells me it’s not the big things from the coming 12 months that I’ll remember most fondly. Ten favorite memories of 2024 are a collection of small moments shared with family or friends. They include, in no certain order:
Placing a small vase of tulips on my daughter’s bedside table, just ahead of her visit home (well, her old home in Aix-en-Provence).
Hearing the cork pop from a first bottle of Prosecco, opened by our waitress late morning at seaside in Italy, with a couple of close friends.
Surveying endless rows of sun-splashed lavender bushes folding up and over the rolling Provence hills in hot, sunny July.
Sharing thoughts about life with a young woman from Hong Kong, while in a 30-minute line for a paper plate of fried kway teow mee from Outram Park in Singapore’s Chinatown.
An impromptu sharing of my umbrella with an Italian teenager, in a sudden heavy downpour in Ospedaletti, then talking about his travels to the US. Signore, per favore!
Staring up at a large, original Banksy (The Mild Mild West), painted high on a wall and just around the corner from a friend’s home in Bristol.
Comforting my cat Chloé last month with strokes and memories before the vet returned with the final, deciding injection. She survived 3 kids, frisky dogs, and a torrent of late-night dinner parties through the years, but couldn’t beat old age.
Singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with my 3 kids in the bleachers at Oracle Park, and watching the SF Giants lose on a beautiful June afternoon. (Not a good year for the boys in orange and black.)
Listening to Ermonela Jaho sing Puccini’s heart-tugging “Un Bel Di Vedremo” from Madame Butterfly, during the summer opera festival in Aix. No tears, damn it, no tears!
Leafing through a photo album of memories with my 89 year-old Uncle John in Quebec, hearing tales of prized cars, old flames, and a perilous romance with a spicy mafia doll in Montreal. What a life.
I sit here now, in late December, plotting a 2025 of stretch goals and travel destinations. Some might even happen, and won’t that be amazing? I’ll be equally alert to the everyday little things that keep the joy ballast topped up. Unexpected moments with friends and family, and the beauty of nature. I’m blessed to live in the sun dappled south of France, with god’s greatest hits at every turn.
I’m wishing you hope and happiness for the year ahead. May your big plans come through, and those small joys provide a scrapbook of great memories for year end.
If that was a top ten remembered of 2024, that’s pretty much a lifetime of experience for most people. I have a feeling that some of those experiences will be, or have been put to words and notes maybe to be recorded. Bon chance in the new year mon Ami.