I couldn’t go out with Aussie on Tuesday. We both put coats on and I made it to the top of the driveway, turned left onto the road, made a quick about-turn and came back down with careful steps (my first time with Yak Trax this winter atop our messy ice), bringing down the trash cart, blue recyclables bin, and the mail. The winds were hitting 50 mph, twigs and branches were pouring down, and I hadn’t slept the previous night because of the fierce winds, thinking of the few pine trees high up behind the house that could come crashing down.

I wrote about Dave Hayes the Weather Nut, whom I knew practically nothing about other than that he’s part of a band and is a brilliant amateur meteorologist who provides the best weather predictions for this Valley. He’s usually right on, and if he isn’t, he admits it and apologizes. So, to my surprise, he wrote the following 2 days ago:

“Good morning folks, I want to briefly start off today and say that I’m here doing this work as we move into 2026 because somehow I was able to quit drinking back on the eve of New Year’s Eve going into 2009. I have no magic formula to share, other than something deep inside me wanted to live, even though I mostly wanted to not continue. 29 months after quitting, I started this page hoping to share something I loved and wanting to be a helpful person, and I’m so grateful that you showed up and continue to support my work here. I certainly got lucky, and am very fortunate as the cookie could have easily crumbled in another direction, so I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me a purpose in this life.”

It’s the first personal sharing that I have read by him, a beauty. Something happened, he doesn’t say what, and he turned a new leaf bigly (Warning to all readers: I will be using bigly long after Trump disappears from the scene). Maybe it was a phone call, a book, a song or phrase that kept on throbbing at a low hum somewhere deep in his unconscious, and he realized he wanted to live. Maybe a brief conversation or just a smile, and that person would never know what effect he or she had.

Two and a half years later, Dave Hayes began to post his weather predictions, and he’s got lots of fans and supporters, including me. He did what many artists and people of passion do, figured out how to monetize something he loves and give his all to it, and the rest is history.

Perhaps that will happen to our society, too. Maybe this American society also has something deep inside that wants to live. It wants community, it wants strong families, it wants shared values, and it wants to keep on going while honoring the best of its traditions. Maybe it won’t lie down and pretend to be dead, at least not for long.

And something else now, as the sun goes down on the old year. David Bowie used to advice musicians to “go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

It reminded me of what Dr. Eric Goodman, founder of Foundation Training whose back exercises I do regularly, advises in one of his segments. He tells you to kneel, your feet behind you with tiptoes on the floor, but instead of putting your weight on the toes, put it fully on your knees, relax the back, and now bend forward as much as you can so that you almost fall forward onto the floor, but not quite. There’s a balance there between your own equilibrium and the forces pushing you forward, and that’s where you want to be, he says, breathing deeply into the rib cage.

How much I love my stability, sitting down on a chair as I type this, heat coming through the vents, confident that all will be well. But is that when I’m most creative? You think all artists want to face the unknown, the blank canvas or screen? Musical phrases that don’t seem to connect with anything? Some flimsy idea that may or may not go anywhere? Think again. How many of us have learned to listen to those voices rather than dismissing them?

Paul McCartney has talked of how often he’d go out to listen to some music and hear a chord someone’s playing, and it stays and stays with him, till eventually he has no choice but to build his next song around it. Doesn’t know if it will work, he just does it. And I’m ready to bet you that it doesn’t always work, not by a long shot, but you have to give it a go.

When I give things a go—especially things I’m not sure of—I surrender to a voice telling me that I was put on earth not to be stable, not to be sure of myself, not to rely on old and familiar cues, but to connect with something else.

For 2026, I wish for all of us to feel once again the great urge to live and flourish, not just individually but also as a society. And remember that living and flourishing often involve taking risks, walking on ice to feed the birds, and letting go of the things we swear by in order to follow the minstrel’s song.