Pristine

On New Year’s Day I looked out to a lovely blanket of newly fallen snow. What had been treacherous travel the night before was now quiet, clean, and innocent-looking. The symbolism was abundant: A brand new year ushered in with a refreshingly clean slate.

Pristine is the word often used to describe this newness. Pristine: untouched, unspoiled. Its Latin roots even allow for pristine to mean, “unaltered original.” Now we’re getting somewhere.

Our blank canvas—a fresh snowfall and a new year ahead--are ready for us to create something. The trick is to get to work. You can stare at them, mesmerized, and suddenly realize it’s March and you haven’t really started yet.

With a pristine landscape, we get the chance for a reset. We get a do-over. We have this whole year ahead of us and we can try to make it exactly what we want. [We get these chances every day, actually, over and over again, but I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s a manuscript I haven’t finished yet.]

I was living in Washington, D.C. when I bought my first car, a Jeep Wrangler. I washed and waxed it nearly every weekend. I kept it so clean and shiny. And then one day, a workman at my office building dropped a fire extinguisher on it. True story. The fender suddenly had a softball size dent that tore straight through the metal, and the paint was completely gone. It was a shame. I always parked in an out-of-the way spot, too, one that was too small for mainstream vehicles. There were no major doorways near me and no reason I could see for anyone to be carrying fire extinguisher that close to my car. But, that’s the story I was told.

I had it repaired, but as the years went on, the damage to that spot eventually started to rust through. After that incident, though, I went off-roading in Virginia and I got the Jeep rightly filthy. I had the top down during a storm in Minnesota and I learned how to pull the drain plugs to let the water out. I got permanent dog slobber on the windows. And the windshield, for being so vertical, nearly always had a spidery chip or crack in it. Twenty-six years later, I still have that old Jeep. It’s well loved and well lived. And every mark tells a story. Much like us.

So dive in and show no fear. A blank slate might be an unaltered original but its power lives in the alterations. Pristine snow will eventually melt—at least, here in the Lower 48 it will. So go make some tracks.

On New Year’s Day I stood at the window looking out at the snow and it was breathtaking. It was daunting. And it was an opportunity. It’s a new year.

Time to get to work.