Happy New Year. In which I put my feet up.

A quick but most sincere New Year's wish for you, dear reader.

Let us continue our search for the best in 2018...

the best in others,

the best in ourselves,

and the best bargained memorabilia to enrich us all, every one.

Here is one last item fleamarketed at Kolaportið from a native Icelander, a talented craftswoman who proudly weaves her talent in bold and colorful cozy creations.

Walt Whitman once wrote, "the press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections" and I have often meandered the majesty of this world with those words in mind and those hopes in tow.

It is my resting winter tootsies, however, wrapped in their colorful Icelandic wool booties, that I hope are currently spreading comforting warmth far beyond my own home.

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

For the continuation of Whitman's "Song of the Open Road", visit the Poetry Foundation site.

poetryfoundation.org/poems/48859/song-of-the-open-road