So John Lennon, and the hippies, and Mary Oliver and Fats Domino and Buddy Holly had it right after all. Love is everything.

And Happy New Year, it seems.

We live in a sometimes humorless, anger, violent and tense world, but that, for me, is a choice, not the reality of life.

My world is not humorless. Or angry. Or violent. And most days, not fearful. And not loveless.Those are my choices for myself, for my life and for this year. There are people who live in drama, lament, anxiety and confusion, and I know because for most of my life, I have been one of them, and sometimes am one of them still. My wishes for my year are to continue to be creative, to tell my story. To work hard to shed the fear and lament and anxiety that once helped me survive, and now constitute a world in which I do not wish to live.

I absorb lots of words in a year. My own, various writers, poets, philosophers, wise and dead men and women. But none have been more stirring for me, or better characterized by wishes for my new year and for yours than the ones that were read at my wedding to my beloved Maria in June, from the poet Mary Oliver:

“What I want to say is

that the past is the past,

and the present is what your life is,

and you are capable

of choosing what will be,

darling citizen.

So come to the pond,

or the river of your imagination,

or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.

And live

your life.”

— “Mornings at Blackwater,” by Mary Oliver

This is my wish for the New Year, to live my life. No one can give it to me, no one can take it away. I have fallen into dark and fearful places, and with the help of some magical spirits, and hard, hard, work, have crawled out to return to life. I have come to the pond, and the river of my imagination, and I have regrets but no apologies, and work to do, so much work to do.

I am looking forward, not back, and rewriting the story of my life. I can’t change the past, but I imagine the future.

I have come also to the harbor of my longing, and found what I have so long sought, and together, we are putting our lips to the world. And living our lives. I choose life. I wish the same for all of you.