May your 2024 be filled with perfect bites

Years ago, while lunching with some co-workers, I mused about ordering a salad while perusing the menu.

"Oh, Jenny," sighed one of my co-workers and good friends, "We don't have time for you to get a salad."

She was speaking from experience. She knew, like my friends and family do, that every bite of a salad has to be the perfect bite, and it takes me forever to eat a salad. Every bite needs a little lettuce, some protein, maybe a little carrot or beet, and a swipe of dressing. A forkful of just chicken gets put down and the meal carefully plucked from the ever-decreasing inventory in the bowl.

That's the best way to eat a salad, in my mind. Every bite has a little sweet, a little sour, something chewy, something crunchy.

As I thought about the coming year, and everyone wishing for peace, for health and love, for good fortune, this came to mind — "I wish for you the perfect bite."

Because you can't know love without knowing sorrow. You can't hold onto something without losing something else.

This past year I mourned the loss of our old neighborhood that we left behind. And yet I am happy to be in our new home. I was angry at a relative who died suddenly after years of isolation and silence. It took me a lot of work to move past anger to grief and eventually forgiveness. And now when I think of her, I can remember the laughter, the good times, the hospitality and amazing meals she made because she loved to cook for others.

So I wish for all of us wonderful experiences that turn into beautiful memories, and acceptance of the losses that we will all experience. Because we will have to take the sour along with the sweet. I wish for you the perfect bite.