Subtraction, for a change

Happy New Year. The most welcome sight in New York City for 2011 is...the pavement!

The streets of New York are finally plowed for the most part, although a trip to Brooklyn yesterday was less than reassuring. It's been a bit surreal, the clean-up response to this blizzard of 2010. So silent, so outrageously hypo-existent, and though the worst most of us experienced was some irritation at being snowed in and house-bound, we are learning of the tragedies which resulted from, or were compounded by the paralysis of the New York City Department of Sanitation.

For the past few days the warmer temperature has helped the melt along. Soon we will have no snow left

and the anger and frustration will seem a little misplaced for those of us who suffered no lasting consequences.

But for those who lost babies and elderly family members because help couldn't get to them, had car accidents, slipped, fell, broke a bone - how odd, how outrageous it will be to have the snow gone.

Today I saw a snippet of a CNN interview of Michael J. Fox by Dr.Sanjay Gupta. Every time I see Michael J. Fox, which isn't very often, I am struck by how long he has struggled with Parkinson's, but more so by the way he inhabits the disease, which he describes as 'the gift that keeps on taking'. The less he's left with, the more he's determined to make of it. After watching the segment, I went to the kitchen and boxed up one of the two sets of dishes that I use. It seemed like the thing to do.

This past year is surely one whose dust I shall gladly shake from my feet. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but using my (very) newly adopted policy of "done task, don't dwell", I've been trying to throw things over my shoulder with a pinch more fastidiousness than Lot's wife (who just had to look back, and was turned into a pillar of salt for her trouble).

It is refreshing and liberating to simply keep moving forward no matter what happens. It might not actually be possible at every moment - but there's something to be said for making the effort. The metaphysical among us would argue that if you don't think of something, it doesn't exist for you, but what about that darned snow which soon won't exist, but which many people will remember in large part because of the losses it inflicted? Letting go can involve a double negative, or two.

Photo: Me, not skiing - Calicoon, N.Y.