Routines vs. resolutions
Notes for the new year
I have always loved the week between Christmas and New Year’s, this lull in the buzz of the holidays. Presents have been acquired and distributed; friends and relatives have been visited; now we get to read the books and play the games and eat the chocolate and wear the comfy clothes Santa brought.
Most days, if the weather’s tolerable (not last week!), I take my dogs for a ramble in Congressional Cemetery, two blocks from my house. They roam off-leash; I pretend I’m out for a walk in the country. Everybody’s happy to be out and about.
Often, as a small act of self-liberation, I leave my phone at home, just to prove that I can. (Try it if you haven’t.) Sometimes I carry it with me and snap a photo or two of what I see, like this weather-deconstructed paper wasp nest I happened on two days ago:
At this time of year, hidden structures become visible; the architecture of things emerges. When I look at the wasps’ deconstructed nest, I see not ruin but beauty and symmetry. The exposed cells and swirls carry evidence of the industry of the spring, summer, and fall, and offer a pattern for how to shape the coming year.
Speaking of patterns and planning: Are you, like me, a sucker for notebooks? Do you cherish the fond (foolish?) hope that if you find the perfect notebook/planner/organizer, you’ll realize all your goals and dreams for the new year?(Like some forlorn knight of the Grail, I’m still questing.) You might like this essay on notebooks magical and mundane by Alicia Kennedy, whose newsletter I highly recommend. Alicia’s forthcoming book, No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating (Beacon Press, August 2023), is going to be a banger.
I’m resisting the urge to rush out and buy more paper peripherals right now; I’ve got a stack of notebooks to get reacquainted with this weekend as I figure out how best to keep track of myself and my ideas and projects in 2023. But if you have a notebook you love, I’m all ears.
Instead of New Year’s resolutions (too easily broken! too much self-defeating pressure to improve!), I’m heading into 2023 with my eye on habits and routines that make me feel better and more connected and that I know help me get honest, serious, deep work done. It’s an obvious list but a good one, I think:
getting some kind of exercise most days
reading every day
meditating
making a really good cup of tea every morning (I’m a fan of Upton Tea Imports)
paying heed to small good things (birds, spiders, the way light moves through the tree outside my bedroom window…)
being deliberate about where I focus my energy and attention
What does that last item mean, in practice? Emphasizing what’s important (writing and reading, friends and family) rather than what’s interesting (“oh, hey, the NYT published another provoking op-ed and everybody who’s still on Twitter is mad about it”).
Focus on what’s important, not what’s interesting: that’s how my therapist put it to me not long ago during one of our many convos about attention span. (I’m easily distracted.) The recent decline of Twitter and the explosion of alternative platforms have made a lot of people rethink how and when we use social media, and why. Time to zap some of those apps on my phone (scary! which means I need to do it) and set specific times of day to catch up with the Interwebs.
Recapping, reading, watching: I’ve felt overwhelmed by the flood of best-of-2022 lists this week, so I’ll spare you mine. But if you want to catch up with what I’ve read this year, you can find mini-reviews (featuring adorable pet pics) on my Insta feed. This weekend I expect to watch the last episode of season 1 of Andor (so very good!) and to finish Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez (loving it so far, and that cover really pops).
First book event of 2023
In person, no less! On Jan. 10, I’ll be in Harrisonburg, VA, to kick off WMRA’s 2023 Books & Brews series with a live event at 7 p.m. at Pale Fire Brewing Company. Details here. I’m excited about this, because the pandemic made it impossible to have an in-person book launch for Clutter. Don’t publish a book in the middle of a pandemic if you can help it, kids.
Time to take the dogs for a walk. Stay safe, be well, focus your energy on what matters most. Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!
Cheers,
Jen