Taking stock

With a bottle of prosecco in the fridge, and 2010 calendars scattered about the house, and a slate of meaningful AFC games on tap this coming Sunday, we at 1202 Sabina are currently all about looking forward. Folks, tonight we will be the change we want to see: slightly tipsy, perhaps, but full of love and resolutions and the persistent hope that this year really will see a resurgence of heavy metal. We'll buy the new Mastodon album, I promise, if it's worth buying.

But the last day of the year, of course, is also about looking back. And so even as we prepare to raise our glasses, and to ring out the old, we're feeling Janus-faced. 2009 was, after all, a pretty doggone neat year. From the streets of Kairouan to miniature golf near Paw Paw, W. Va, we saw some neat sights. And then, too, a little girl came into our life.

Like 99 percent of the nation's newspaper section editors, I'm tempted, then, to do a year-end best-of list. But let's give it a slight twist: let's simply use today as a microcosm of the year. After all, I spent a good part of the day reading about early Islamic architecture and drinking coffee: two activities that probably consumed a healthy slice of my 2009 pie chart. Too, there was a lovely two-inch frosting of snow on our lawn when we woke up: a reminder that the year was filled with moments of unexpected beauty. True to form, L. was both beatific mother, generous sister, and unpredictably ambitious cook: while I type this, she's making chicken something or other. There was great music in the background: Beethoven's Trio in D Major offered a stately background while I read on the Timurids.

And then, as in so many days over the past seven months, Cleo was at the center of things. We took her for a walk in the morning, enjoying her cool, been-there demeanor as flakes fell about her. I managed to get a series of baby giggles - rarer now, as she's seemingly becoming more discerning in her humor - with a series of raspberries on the back of her neck. L. nursed her; we both sat her, in turns, on our thighs while she opened her mouth wide, like a tiny bird, towards spoonfuls of pear, and apple, and rice. She managed to crawl backwards, for reasons unclear, for about a foot, and she showed a sudden fascination with a radiator.

In other words, it's been a full day, and a full year. And here's hoping that the next one is just as good.