It has been a tumultuous year. When I state that, I must be careful of the word, as it can always become even greater than that in the future. However, it is the right word, as this year, it appeared as though in the lives of my family and those around me, nothing was as it seemed. Life happened, but somehow everything felt speeded up, closer to the surface. Personally, things that I took completely for granted as a matter of course, was no longer a matter of course. In fact it was as though I were experiencing an upside down world. Comfortable belief structures became incapable of holding. Even the weather has been challenging. Amidst all of this, is my ever increasing awareness of time and how fleeting life is. How much things change, and how much I do not hold the answers to the things I seek. I have been greatly humbled, like a Boxer, yet, I never felt prize fighting in nature. I have nonetheless felt successes along the way. What lays in wait for me? My family? Our future? By extension, all those I have touched and shall touch in the future? I remember more than a decade ago, I felt that perhaps there may be safety in not making any new acquaintance. Perhaps, I thought, it would shield me from the pain of loss. "When nothing is certain, Anything is possible." Is a saying I love. It has helped me through the years from when I first heard it. It is like the saying, " It is what it is." Such words formed in a sentence has had the power to quiet my anxious heart. This year, I have felt as though stark reality, like a bright light has been shone on my face, and I am squinting, because, there is unexpected raw drama, and it is not coming from the usual places, but concocted in the air. It is fate or some such thing that is testing in an undefinable way. So, I want to believe in what i have believed, but like a hurricane or a tornado, it has torn me away from my footing. I have been left discombobulated, giddy. I don't know what I am dealing with and I have to dig very, very deeply to find myself again. Yet, after so much violence, like the pressure to create a diamond, I have held glimpses of beauty. At least I have had moments within myself to capture it.