See in your mind's eye a stage, an audience on its feet. The play has come to an end. Actors take their final bows and retreat. The last note of the orchestra stikes and fades and the curtain sides, draped in elegant folds, begin to move toward each other again. In slow motion, the curtain closes. We stand, grateful for the Italian stringing technique that enables this beautiful unfolding of drapery...a proper ending to a moment out of time.
Would that we could string moments in a year like so. An invisible garland of beads and rings, threaded through the satin of our living so that as the end of the year draws close, we see before us a gentle release of all that had been witnessed: the comedy and the darkness, the foolishness and the mysterious. Such a close might enable us to feel complete, resolved, at peace. Such a close would be worth the price of admission, as it were, even if the play had gone on a bit too long and had been a bit too heavy on the impossible side of things. Such a close might even help us make sense of things in such a way that we could turn to the new year readied and determined.
Alas, a year isn't a play. This year, most definitively, is not a play.
A close like this will not come at the end of 2020. We will stumble into the light of the new year with questions that haunt: Is it safe to gather for any of the holidays? What harm might we cause if we do? What might we lose if we don't? Doubts and a tiny bit of dread will accompany us and a suspicion that the numeral one at the end of our calendars won't mean much at all in terms of goodness or freshness or hope.
Still...it is a lovely idea...that we might have a gentle, graceful end to a year. Still, it would be nice.
Perhaps, though, it is the wrong idea.
Perhaps we ought be looking at a different set of curtains, a different play, one still in midstream where the hidden string of beads remains pulled back, the curtain against the frame of the stage, and not all is yet resolved.
Perhaps the stage we ought be attending is not the closing of this year but the entering of the new in the middle of our living. Wherever we are, whoever we are, we are not yet done. Our final lines not yet spoken. December 31 is but one moment in a life still rich with possibility. Let 2020 close with all its disappointment and regret, injustice and death and its heroism across all lands. And as it does, let us without hesitation turn to the larger play - the one always open - inviting us into the great, grand stage of our very lives.
I have not been all I wanted to be this year, and I am not done.
We, in our families, our towns, our peoples have grown in some ways, failed in others...are not yet done.
"The way of progress is neither swift nor easy," wrote physicist and Nobel Prize Winner, Marie Curie. There is much left to do, to learn, to encourage, to heal and to make.
2020 will end.
Let it.
We are not yet done.
Love, Maria
Free Offerings:
1. What to Remember Reunion!!!! Jan. 17, 4 - 5:00pm ET. For anyone who hung out by the fire with us, or wishes to!! Join Maria Sirois and the WTR team (Karlee Fain, Ellen Boyd and Raphaela Kramer) for an intimate chat about the impulse behind the series, about passion and creativity and the long game of the universe, and ask whatever you wish to ask! https://zoom.us/j/95547798828?pwd=K1djSFp3ODNEMWZhVStJc1dhMXFJQT09
2. What to Remember: A free, 9-week inspiration series. To register simply go here: https://www.mariasiroisprograms.com
3. Masterful Storytelling podcast with celebrity coach, Karlee Fain, at EverybodyThrive:
4. Happiness in Difficult Moments (in Spanish!) for Clarin Magazine:
Upcoming Programs in 2021:
Teaching for Transformation, a 6-week online course for presenters at every level. Jan. 21 - Feb. 25. Hosted by Wholebeing Institute. For information: http://bit.ly/1ZlXORa
Certificate in Wholebeing Positive Psychology, an 8-month training offered through Wholebeing Institute, beginning Feb. 1, 2021. For information: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/course-overview/cipp-overview/west-coast/
Driving the Narrative: Storytelling as a Leadership Competency. Feb. 9 - March 16. Hosted by The Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry, Champlain College. For information: https://ai.catalog.instructure.com/courses/driving-the-narrative
Authenticity: Building Capacity for a Thriving Life. March 2 - 16. Hosted by Wholebeing Institute. For information: http://bit.ly/2TY8on1
Writing Through Fear/Writing Toward Wisdom. March 10 - 31. Hosted by Wholebeing Institute. For information: https://bit.ly/2VYptgl
For more information about my work, visit www.mariasirois.com
For more information about Karlee Fain, visit: https://www.everybodythrive.com