NEW BEGINNINGS

 By Patricia Bradley

Actually, the title probably should be A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW YEAR. 

We are halfway through the first month of 2026--can you tell this year is going to whiz by? A friend's grandfather once told me that time passes like speed--when you're 10 it goes 10 miles an hour, when you're 20, it speeds up to 20 miles an hour, and so on, and after you're 65, hold on to your hat!

So what does that have to do with new beginnings? Nothing really. I just thought it explained how we process time really well, although it is the reason I started thinking about new beginnings. You see, I'm well past the age 65 reference, and I don't have a lot of time to waste.

I also have a few things on my bucket list that I'd like to do before...well, you get the picture...

For the first time in my memory, the only thing keeping me from clicking off a few of those bucket list items is my deadline, which is March 16. I'm 25,000 words into the story, and it'll take every one of those 59 days to get the story written. But after that, I'm looking at a new beginning. That's why I chose the word Anticipation for my word to live by this year. 

I don't always choose a word every year...come to think about it, I never choose a word — it always chooses me, and some years a word doesn't choose me. But when it does, I focus on the meaning. According to Webster, anticipation means the act of looking forward, especially with pleasurable expectation.

One thing that's been on my bucket list since I was ten years old was learning how to fly a plane, and in late December, I actually took the controls of a single-engine Piper Archer for about thirty minutes. I even took off, although my main objective was to learn how to land the plane. Landing is much more difficult than taking off, and will happen after I have more lessons and a lot more experience. :-) 

Right now, learning to pilot is a lot like when I learned to drive a stick-shift '53 Dodge. Every movement took concentration, but guess what--one day I was shifting those gears without grinding the clutch and doing it automatically. I can't wait for that to happen while flying!

I have a few more things on my bucket list...like a new relationship, visiting Israel again, and picking up my work on the potter's wheel, but for now I'm focusing on the new book. It will be a Natchez Trace Parkway book, but set in the Northern District rather than at Natchez. And part of the setting is the Elephant Sanctuary at Hohenwald, Tennessee, about a hundred miles from my home in Corinth, Mississippi. I had no idea there was an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, let alone that close to me!

How about you? Do you have something you'd like to do but haven't? Leave a comment, and I'll enter you in a drawing for a copy of One the Edge of Trust.