I looked to the right. Most mornings I take an immediate left to head to the park but on that morning, I turned the other way.

The colors were stunning. Pink and purple hues graced the sky with the promise of a fiery orange after another minute or two.

It was the kind of sky that I could have just as easily missed if I'd gone left and walked toward the park, or looked down to tie my shoe. It was the kind of sky that saw me through last winter's cold NYC mornings and chilly conversations at home. The heated exchanges while managing remote learning and the tight hugs after a tough day.

I miss that sky. December and January seemed to be grayer than I remember, and I have felt the same. My morning walks have become ritual, and I assumed the pastel morning skies that saw me through January of last year would continue to be part of it. It turns out rituals can hold and change at the same time and I'm looking for my footing.

I'm longing for the pre-pandemic rituals that held for so long. The guarantees of work, school, date nights, space, change of seasons ... these have shifted again and again, some ever so slightly and others drastically. We're told to hang in there, stop to smell the roses, be grateful, and this too shall pass. I've lost track of whether I want things to pass or return but I am certain that I need my footing back.

On my 43rd birthday I promised myself this year would be a year of more answers than questions, more noticings than wonderings. The sentiment is lovely and putting it into action began to feel overwhelming. As we rang in January 2022 I decided not to make any resolutions based on past success rates and instead, to think about a word or a phrase that would guide me to find the footing I crave.

I landed on one foot forward, the irony not lost on me. While I want to feel steady and grounded, I'm realizing there’s a lot of work to be done to get there, a messy middle, or as Brené Brown talks about, the dreaded Day 2. Some of my rituals are holding in place, while some require shifts right or left.

Tomorrow I'll walk out the door for my morning walk and pause before I head down the hill to look right. Perhaps I'll find the purple and pink swaths or a feisty red/orange sky, or the gray of another cloudy day about to begin. Then I'll turn left and put one foot forward, thinking about the actions that one day, I'll turn into words.