New Year’s Day 2025

 A Clean Slate

Here we are in a brand new year. I feel grateful for January 1st, as though my slate is swept clean, and I can start fresh. The dust of my errors gathers and is scattered to the winds. I suspect we are never entirely free of our cultural conditioning, and my clean slate each New Year turns out to be a blessing, not a burden. Even better, I have left behind the burden of making resolutions, which in the past set me up for failure each New Year.

Now, I take my cues from Oliver Burkeman, (dailyish) Pema Chodron (forever kind to our human flaws), Natalie Goldberg ( a tender approach to whatever practice we want to establish) and others who remind us to stop and smell the roses. This isn’t a platitude, as there is science behind doing less. Cal Newport is a familiar name, and his book Slow Productivity argues for focusing on fewer tasks at once, much like Burkeman.

Broad Strokes

With that in mind, I surveyed myself and realized I have a few essential things I sincerely want to do, but I am not doing them. They will be my focus over the next 12 months. I don’t have to worry about what I need to do—that always gets down. However, other essential things are easily ignored. Furthermore, there is always time. I want to be more mindful of how I spend mine.

The broad strokes are writing, spending time doodling and sketching, resting, eating more vegetables, reading and reflecting, getting outdoors in winter, and ensuring time for friends and distant family members.

Over the next few days, I will doodle my thoughts on my brand new 2025  life planner and see how and when to start, how to make X sustainable and not be rigid. Good luck to us all.

I have my annual New Year’s poem and message that I love reading and posting here.

Fourteen years ago, my friend Patsy, now deceased, sent me the following stanza by poet Marge Piercy from her poem, The Spring Offensive of the Snail. She also added this note, which continues to inspire me. “This is a great poem to start off the New Year. There is a ceremony among some Indigenous people which involves throwing water over their backs seven times. In doing so, they wash away any habits or thoughts that are no longer beneficial for growth.  People forgive those who have harmed them and ask forgiveness of those they have harmed.  Now they are ready to start the year anew.”

“…But remember to bury
all old quarrels
behind the garage for compost.
Forgive those who insulted you.
Forgive yourself for being wrong.
You will do it again
for nothing living
resembles a straight line,
certainly not this journey
to and fro, zigzagging
you there and me here
making our own road onward
as the snail does…”   excerpt from Marge Piercy’s poem, The Spring Offensve of the Snail

A few years ago, I added this, and it still stands.

I hope that this new year will be filled with many meaningful moments of joy, purpose, courage, solace, generosity, health, awareness, adventures, laughter and lots of time with the ones you love. Let’s not forget to stay open to the element of surprise. We never know what might happen around the corner.

There is always a door:

Furthurmore, it has been my experience that there is always a door. Help arrives during times of distress and great difficulty. Sometimes, we don’t even need to ask for help—it arrives unbidden. And sometimes, we need to seek it out—knock on doors, write letters, make calls.

Even our proactiveness doesn’t imply we solve the problem. Yet, we often find comfort, strength, and new information. It is essential to seek out what you need. Sometimes, the locked door opens, even a crack, allowing light to enter. Sometimes, it doesn’t, and yet, our efforts and the efforts of others keep us from being alone and can provide moments of comfort.

2025 awaits us with 365 brand new pages for our book of life. Let’s live them entirely, in the best way we know how. “Zigzagging (along) you there, me here…as the snail does.”

Above all, never forget that healing can happen, even when a cure doesn’t.

With love and gratitude and a thousand good wishes for you all. Trudy