I didn’t go in for resolutions this year, but I did have a few hopes – the one that aspired to an unflustered voice while getting small people out the house on-time was always gonna be a futile dream, but my aim to read more is one that’s panning out alright.
And whilst wrapped up in the worlds of some brilliant stories, I’ve re-clocked how the narrator’s all-knowing voice so often hints at what’s to come.
Signs dotted throughout a plot keep me gripped for what awaits but also ramp-up the underlying meaning of every tale; author’s shaping the path of their Mr Darcy, or my personal fave; Little Women’s Jo March.
I think art imitates life here as there’ve been many times when I’ve felt a nod of reassurance, a divine sign pointing me in, or confirming, my direction.
Like the day I found out we were expecting our daughter; my husband and I went for a random mooch around a gallery, clueless as to what was inside. In one room I found a painting of the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora. It was the girls’ name I was fixated on – it felt like a warm, glowing sign that I must be pregnant with our Rory. (What with a doctor for a husband I did have to back-up my supreme sign with a bit of science.)
Or how in November, I went back to my hometown of York for my friends-since-we-were-toddlers wedding. On a rainy potter of the streets my brolly collided with another, I looked up under our now shared canopy to see the face of the vicar who married Oscar and I many moons ago… A little wink from afar.
And then on our moving day when I found some school memorabilia left by the previous family – it was from a school I’d once taught at and, I soon sussed, belonged to a former student of mine.
In his daily meditations, the priest, Richard Rohr encourages a life of trust – trust that we’re “being held and guided… (that) almost everything is a kind of guidance.”
Sometimes the signs are loud, sometimes subtle… a song on the radio, a robin in the park. But it's always fun to seek and find them.