A Recipe for the New Year

J spent New Year’s Eve with his grandparents and I picked him up mid-morning on the first. I’d spent the drive up immersed in Resolutions… ideas of what to improve and what to cut out during the coming year. I’d listed them all so many times in my head that it was starting to sound rehearsed: “Be kinder to myself, don’t use credit, long walks for the dog” over and over until the words didn’t make sense anymore.

When J was buckled into the backseat and we were back on the road, I looked up at him in the rear view mirror and asked him if he wanted to make any New Year’s Resolutions. His eyes were thoughtful in the mirror and then he grinned. In a forceful stage whisper, with his hand up around his mouth as though this were the greatest secret he’d ever told, he spoke:

“Mommy? Let’s just make New Year’s Pie!”

I laughed at first and tried to explain to him what resolutions actually were but his words stuck with me. And ultimately, I found that as is often the case, the truest words and ideas spring forth from the mouths of children.

What if instead of resolutions, we all just made pie. What if we took all the bad and all the good that this year has in store and mixed it all up into a flaky crust, filled with the sugary delight of just living the days that stretch ahead. What if we threw away the resolutions and the neatly pressed receipts of the year before and started fresh with the idea that life is meant for living… for enjoying… for delving into like a freshly baked pie.

We didn’t make a real pie when we got home, though the idea seemed a good one. Instead, I threw away my list of resolutions and vowed instead to live this next year as though each day held the promise of sweetness baked in its crust. I vowed to look at each moment as a warm slice of deliciousness, vowed to enjoy the taste of life on my lips, and tongue and heart. I vowed that there would be pie, both real and fictional, to sweeten our days ahead.

From now on, my only “resolution” is to live my life holding firm to the promise of pie. To live sweetly and fully… to live with abandon and hope and joy and love. To live as though my life were a recipe, each day an ingredient into the perfect dessert.

Because it kind of is, you know?