Some Sundays end the way they should.

A good meal. Plates pushed back. Folks sitting around a little longer than planned. Nobody watching the clock. The talk wandering from one thing to the next, easy and unimportant in the best way. Somebody pours another cup of coffee or tea. Slices of pumpkin and pecan pies are served. Or maybe a slice of cake. Or two. And no one says much about it.

Those moments matter more than we sometimes realize at the time.

As the year comes to a close, it feels like a lot of people are carrying a little extra in the way of worries and burdens these days. Not always anything you can point to exactly — just a sense that things have been loud, the days have been full, and by the time you finally sit down, you can feel it in your bones.

That happens from time to time. It always has.

Life has a way of moving in chapters and seasons. Some years feel steady. Some feel unsettled. And most of us learn along the way that you don’t have to sort everything out all at once, or put words to every worry to know when it is time to slow down and rest for a bit.

So, think of this as a simple invitation.

When things do feel heavy — as they sometimes do — You’re Welcome Here.

You’re welcome to step away from the noise for a while.
You’re welcome to read something gentle.
You’re welcome to sit a spell. Or to simply pass through.

No invitations or explanations required.

This place was never meant to keep up with the world. It was meant to be a pause from it — somewhere things move at a human pace, where kindness still counts, and where nobody expects you to have it all figured out.

We’ve been through uncertain times before. Folks always have. And somehow, we’ve managed — leaning on one another, finding comfort in ordinary things. A familiar story. A shared laugh. A quiet evening where nothing much is asked of us at all.

Those things still matter. They always will.

As the calendar turns toward a new year, there is no rush here. No resolutions being handed out. No pressure to look too far ahead. It’s enough to take things one day at a time — to live in the moment.

If the year ahead brings fine days, we’ll be grateful for them.
If it brings harder ones, we’ll face them the same way people always have — together — with patience, decency, kindness, and a little help from one another.

So I suppose, if someone asked me what I was trying to say here, I’d have to answer— “Nothin’ much. Just that it’s okay to sit awhile.”

And that if you ever feel the need to step off the road for a bit — to set things down and catch your breath — you’ll find the door open.

The light will be on.

You’re welcome here.

— Jim  (and Red!)

We’ll visit again in a few days, when I share a few personal thoughts as the year draws to a close soon.

Pen-and-ink illustrations created with the assistance of AI and lovingly styled for Little Red Bear Land.