Alice B. Toklas, after losing a battle with the cat bed.
The old year has passed (and good riddance to you, 2010, really — you were a beastly bear of a brute of a year) and the new year arrived; here at Belle Reve, changes are already afoot. I’m typing this on my fabulous new MacBook, having actually folded towels in a timely manner for the first time in many a moon. Alice B. Toklas, for the first time, reached the high ground of the top of the chair to win a battle for supremacy with Gertrude Stein, though she later discovered that supremacy over the cat bed can never be won. And, on this second day of the new year, I’m thinking a great deal about change. It’s going to be unavoidable, this year — there’s nothing I can do but accept the fact that 2011, for me, will be a year of great change: a new job, a new home, a new world. And it’s also unpredictable — I don’t know where I will be, after the end of this semester, or what I will be doing, or when or how or any of the other Ws and Hs one learns in journalism class. The only thing I can control is how I approach the changes, how I learn from them, how I work to live inside of the unfolding of possibilities, of paths new and different and open for me to move and grow and change within them.
It is perhaps because of this that I’ve resolved to think of new year’s resolutions differently this year. I admit that I’m probably the worst person ever at keeping up with resolutions: I always start off strong, and dive head-first into a totally new writing schedule or sugar-free diet or gym schedule — and then surface to lounge about poolside within weeks, never to dive in again. I always feel very much like this Allie Brosh cartoon (actually, all of her cartoons. Seriously. If you don’t read Hyperbole and a Half, you are not living. Hyperbole and a Half is the peg to fill the hole you never knew you had in your soul). This time, my resolutions have more to do with maintenance than with major change: how to maintain my self and my sanity in the midst of major upheaval. I’ve been reading a lot of texts related to Kriya yoga and thinking a lot about balance. Most of my resolutions relate to finding a way to strike a balance between/among/in all areas of my life: the intellectual and the creative, the private and the public, the work and the job, the personal and the communal, and so on and so forth and etcetera and such.
Because I am not the best at keeping my resolutions, I’ve decided to think of them in terms of activities rather than broad statements (Exercise all the time! Live a healthy life! CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!). I’ve decided to try the 365 project again and take a photograph a day. I almost made it last year, and only skipped a few days. Sadly, math was the biggest challenge, as I completely lost count and basically started making up numbers at some point this year. I’m armed for this year with a numbered calendar. Last year, I found that the practice became a kind of meditation on beauty for me, and on what made me happy, and on finding meaning in the everyday — and what better way to strike balance than to learn to appreciate what I might otherwise ignore? I’m also determined to read more, and have started an account on Goodreads to keep track of my reading. If you’re on Goodreads, please feel free to friend me — and even if you’re not, please send along suggestions. I’m ready for just about anything.
In light of that last resolution, I’m posting a poem about the end of the year from Jennifer K. Sweeney’s gorgeous How to Live on Bread and Music, published by Perugia Press. I’m completely captivated by the last line, which, in one gorgeous image, explains exactly how I want to feel and live this year.
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On average, odd years have been the best for me. I’m at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version of someone I already know. Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I’ve never experienced. The sky is molting. I don’t know if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering. I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland. Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas as possible as unsexed fruit. I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders the connection between the sunset and pollution. On Venus you and I are not even a year old. Then there were two skies. The one we fly through and the one we bury ourselves in. I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things. I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories. Such things. In the story we were together every time. On his wedding day, the stone in his chest not fully melted but enough. Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me |
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It sounds as if you and I are both going to have lots of changes in our lives this year. I hope they work out great for both of us.
As for the reading…have you ever read anything by Frank Peretti. “This Present Darkness” is great. Actually everything I’ve read by him has been very good!
I don’t have a Goodreads account, but I highly recommend reading William Gaddis’s ‘JR’ — don’t be put off by its reputation if you can help it. Once you’re past the first few pages and used to the structure, it’s easy (and fun and interesting and brilliant).
Where’s the new job? Love Jennifer Sweeney’s poem. Gotta check out that book now.
Just ’cause I’m acquainted with the publisher & it’d break her heart: it’s Perugia Press, not Persea, who published the wonderful JKS. But yours is a dearheart, and I hope your unknown new ___ makes you happy!
Thank you, everyone! Mayumi, I don’t know yet. Fingers etcetera crossed. And Marie, YIKES! MEA CULPA! I love Perugia Press — thank you for the correction. I’ll change that immediately!
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