Record-keeping

So it's that time of year.  Time to get ready to pay the U.S. Treasury.  I have an appointment with my accountant in two days to have my taxes done.  (Yes, I used to do it myself, but I got lazy.)  That means that today, I had to gather all pertinent paperwork and documents.  In and of itself, that's not a terrible chore.  But there are oh, so many ways to get distracted!

Part of my ritual is reviewing my checkbook and credit card statements, looking for charitable donations, medical expenses, etc.  That's easy enough to do, but I find it hard to stay focused on the task at hand.  In this process, I encounter all the expenditures I made throughout the tax year, and each one reminds me of something I did, somewhere I went, somebody with whom I celebrated something.  It's a pretty heady experience.  And I love it.

I am reminded of the greenhouse that my dear friends Jim and Lois and I erected in the spring, as well as all the seeds and plants and gardening supplies that I purchased.  Puts my mind right into a spring mode, not a bad thing, since I can still look out my window and see a foot of iced-over snow.

Also, in the spring, I met my artist friend, Jeff, at Two Buttons, Elizabeth Gilbert's warehouse in Frenchtown, NJ.  It was there that he presented me with the commissioned portrait of my late best friend JoAnn, a wedding gift for her daughter Francesca, who was married in March.

I visited my son in Burlington, Vermont, three times last year.  I visited my daughter Jenna in Quechee, Vermont, three times also.  And I visited my daughter Katrina in Florida five times.  (This does not mean that Katrina is my favorite.  This means that New England is cold and Florida is not.)  There was also a week on the Outer Banks in May.  My mind loves to revisit the Outer Banks and does so quite often.

I bought some concert tickets last year.  Most memorable were Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers in nearby Newton, The Avett Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show in New Hampshire, and Jackson Browne at Levon Helm's barn in Woodstock, where I sat two feet away from him and he looked into my soul.  It's true.  Ask my friend Margaret, who went with me and witnessed "the look."

And then there was the family trip to Australia in December.  Still very fresh on my mind.

There were several sad things that happened in 2013, too, but interestingly, my record-keeping does not remind me of them.  For that, I am grateful.