2. Decluttering - In December when the tree is monopolizing real-estate in our already none-too-large living room, I always think of a wonderful old folk tale I read years ago. A peasant man, going nutty living in a small hut with his wife and ten children, goes to the rabbi for advice. The rabbi tells him to move his grandparents in with them. The puzzled man follows this advice and returns the next week, even more frazzled. The rabbi now tells him to take some wayfaring strangers into his home. The peasant complies but again returns the next week to tell the rabbi that he doesn't think this plan is helping much. The rabbi tells him to move his horse and cow and chickens into the house with him. The man thinks the rabbi is losing it, and by the time he returns the next week, he is about to lose it himself. "Rabbi," he says, "I can't stand it! I've got my wife, my ten children, my grandparents, the wayfarers, my horse, cow and chickens all living with me in my small hut! The noise is driving me absolutely crazy!!" "Now," says the wise rabbi, "move everybody out but your wife and children and come back next week." Next week of course, the peasant is so happy. "Ah, Rabbi! My house is so peaceful and quiet! It is just me and my wife and ten children!"

Okay, that was a long story, but I love it! And there's nothing like putting away all the Christmas decorations and garlands, clearing out the cards, retrieving the ribbons and wrappings that have gone interloping with the dust bunnies under the couch, and taking a Big Huge Tree out of my small living room to make it feel expansive and spacious! I get inspired and start working for a stark, barren look everywhere else in the house - paring down, decluttering, keeping it "light enough to travel", as my friend Kristen always says.

3. The Light - In winter, here on the misty shores of Puget Sound, I always find myself wishing I were one of those talented 17th century Dutch landscape painters so I could capture something of the beautiful cold twilight skies when the days are still short. January light here is all slanty and low and on the rare and exciting clear day, as the sun's rays refract through a greater amount of the earth's atmosphere to reach us, they turn all kinds of stunning sunset shades of mango, periwinkle and purple. Even on our cloudy, rainy days, there is something delicate and lovely about the dark, bare branches of chilly trees against the gray of the sky - like the reverse of white lace on a dark dress. You can see the detail now that was hiding most of the year under leafy green frippery. Nature has been decluttering too.

4. Structure - Humans are creatures of routine and while it feels wonderful to let it go for awhile on vacations, there is always relief in my household at the return to a life with some order in it. As a preschool teacher I know said at the end of winter break, "Someone around here needs some structure, and I think it might be ME!" Unlike most of the kids in the neighborhood, mine didn't head back to the school grind last week; we're still all here home together! But even so, there's a comforting feeling to dusting off our school schedule, giving it a January tweak, and once more falling back into our little routine. Art and dance classes begin again, we prepare for our coop meetings, and there is once more some predictability to our days.

5. Quiet Growth - If the natural world went to sleep in November, then it seems that by January it has slumbered long enough to get to the deep restful REM sleep that it needs for repair and further growth. You can feel it outside; everything seems dead on the surface, but if you look closely, Nature's eyeballs are moving rapidly, preparing for flower, fruit and seed bearing days to come. Good, quiet and necessary work is going on. I feel that way too. Now is time for good, quiet, necessary work indoors as well: reading practice on the couch with Apollo, showing Athena how to cut a pattern and use the sewing machine, playing blocks with Hermes with absolutely no other agenda, simply listening as Artemis recounts the loquacious conversations of her friends. All these healthy and necessary things seem to be constantly displaced through November and December. Finally here in January there is open space and time for them.

6. Soup - There is only one New Year's Resolution I can say for sure that I kept: to learn to make soup from scratch. It didn't seem like it should be that hard - no one else seemed to think it was. My friends kept stressing me out saying that I should just make some soup out of my leftovers. But I didn't know how! So that January, I gathered my courage, got out my Fannie Farmer cookbook, and followed a recipe exactly, starting with sauteing onions in butter. (Can anything bad start with sauteed onions in butter?) I can't recall what that first soup was, chicken noodle? lentil? minestrone? But my friends were right! Once I learned how, it was easy, and easy to experiment with. And practical and satisfying and forgiving. Soup is after all, the hallmark of a wise old woman, with a listening ear and a simmering pot of aromatic goodness on the back of her stove. That's who I aspire to be, and the simplicity and honesty of a good soup is just what I need after a month spent in eating meals that are complicated and fussy.

So after fulfilling my soup resolution that year (which incidentally was also great for all the other ones: healthier eating, frugality, more home-cooked meals,) I was feeling so smug with myself, that I began writing a poem about it. An Ode to Soup, if you will. I've been working on it for ten years now, so I'll spare you, but surely someday I will finish it, and then I will read it to you aloud over a steaming bowl of nourishing soup on a cold, rainy January night.