Saturday, December 31, 2011

The year dawns bright


Sparkled
Delray Beach, FL, January 2011
About this photo: We're sharing our favorite photos of the year, and we hope you'll do the same. Just click here to get in on the year-end photographic nuttiness.
Part of me feels our nearly-obsessive devotion to date-based events is a little much. Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays put us on high alert to live up to expectations that simply can't be sustained in the real world. Everything's got to be perfect, everyone's got to be on their best behavior and every memory needs to be unblemished.

Reality dictates otherwise, as life is seldom as clear as the Nivea model's porcelain skin might suggest. We can airbrush, PhotoShop and edit until time immemorial, but underneath it all, reality has a crazy way of bleeding through.

Which brings me to this particular scene, shot in the rushed moments after the big ball dropped, when everyone gathered for the obligatory New Year's party represented the perfect kind of togetherness that made Bing Crosby's career what it was. But was it, really? I'll leave that for you to decide, and to ponder whether such perfection is even worth pursuing. I think the planet would be a happier place if everyday imperfection was considered more than good enough.

Your turn: I'm not a resolution kind of person. But I do want to know what you hope the new year brings. To you. To us all. What do you hope for?

5 comments:

sage said...

I don't do resolutions either, but I do want to wish you a Happy New Year, Carmi

Catherine said...

I tend not to do resolutions. There's only one thing that we are hoping for down here, and that is that the ground will stay steady in 2012.

Bob Scotney said...

Happy New Year, Carmi.

No resolutions for me either; they are like writing rules - there to be broken.

CorvusCorax12 said...

no resolutions here either
I do wish you and your Family a Happy New Year though

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

I resolve to put up more bird, butterfly, and flower pictures on my blog.

;)