2004 is gone, but its to-do list lingers on

A shaft of sunlight spiked through dark clouds over our home just a moment ago, illuminating one of a row of red poinsettias on a railing that lines our deck. It was dazzling enough, the enrichment of color by a sudden diagonal flash, but then, due to a shifting of clouds, it seemed to move on to the plant next to it, and then the next. By nature’s caprice, it had turned a row of winter flowers into a sundial.

I realize I’m applying symbolism to a natural event, the sun’s rays seeking openings through gaps in the clouds, but I can’t help comparing it to the movement of light and shadow over the flat face of an ancient timepiece.

It becomes all the more significant because it occurs on one of the last days of the year, ticking away the seconds of 2004 with a display of beauty and mystery.

I don’t usually like writing holiday columns, because they’re so terribly predictable. That’s true with the fuss that accompanies a new year, going over what was wrong and what was right about the past 365 days, what was the best and what was the worst in movies, music, words and television. I’m tired of seeing references to the new babies of Julia Roberts as any kind of significant event, and I don’t care where celebrities are planning to vacation in ought-five.

That leaves me actually with very little to say. I have nothing new to offer in terms of the hope that seems to be emerging for detente between Israel and the Palestinians. And words cannot describe, without actual involvement, the horror that has turned Indonesia and its environs into a massive graveyard.

And so we are left to find moments of solace or humor in our own little worlds, cocoons of the ordinary on a planet that has once more gone mad. So my list is a personal one, not of high accomplishments, not what I have achieved, but what I haven’t achieved and what remains to be done.

For instance, I haven’t finished my fishpond.

It sits in the backyard filled with water from the last storm that dropped up to 10 inches of rain on our island community in the Santa Monica Mountains. There is shrubbery here and there that shields it from passersby, but it is far from the dazzling project I had envisioned at the start. I saw a gleaming lake in my mind’s eye, a waterfall splashing into it, multicolored fish darting here and there, and ducks floating on the surface. Sunset magazine, its editors alerted to the glory in my yard, would have been begging me to allow them to photograph Elmer’s Pond for their spring cover.

It stands, however, as it stood at last year’s beginning, more or less a hole in the ground that I had to have pumped once for fear of it becoming a breeding place for mosquitoes that would have infected us with Nile fever and killed us all.

My wife’s last words would have been “You and your stupid pond.” How embarrassing.

The only projects I truly finish are the stories, columns or books that I’m writing, although my current literary effort stalled somewhere between the vernal equinox and the winter solstice. It will be a terrific book, one that will elevate me into competition for the National Book Club Award, The Times Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, a People’s Choice selection, the love of friends and family and then that little thing in Oslo. “Well, now, that’s better,” Cinelli would say.

I will grant you that isn’t one of the writing projects I’ve finished, but think of it as grandeur in the making, a peck-peck-pecking toward something so glorious that it staggers the imagination. Even Walter Mitty would be a little stunned at its possibilities.

But I can’t get to it at the moment because I’m too busy thinking about the gazebo. We have plans for one of those little outdoor enclosures that will adorn a corner of Cinelli’s garden. I envision it as a kind of bandstand where we might have small concerts, you know, maybe with violins and some of the other quieter instruments that wouldn’t cause the neighbors to curse me and throw rocks. I can see myself dressed in a white linen suit and looking a little like Tom Wolfe, listening to the music on a sunny afternoon.

One of our neighbors is Suzanne Teng, an accomplished flutist, so we’d include her for a solo performance.

The problem is, I can’t figure out exactly what I want, so the man who will build it, the genius troll of Topanga, doesn’t know what he should be doing. His name is Barry Lysaght, which is really hard to spell. He says, “How’re we doing on the plans?” and I say, “Well, Barry, I’m having trouble with this thing that intersects with the other thing that will make it both structurally sound and beautiful.” He says, “You haven’t done anything, have you?” And I say, “No.”

So now we’re in 2005, and I’m sitting here watching God’s clock move across the poinsettias and hoping that at least I’ll finish this column and then maybe go outside and study the hole in the ground that will be among the top 10 ponds ever built, including those in ancient Rome and Greece. You just watch.

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.