“Many new things will happen this year” says the fortune cookie or the Dove chocolate wrapper or the blog post I’m writing.
If it was a read-and-response from the Book of Common Prayer I was working through, I’d want it to read like this:
Celebrant: Many new things will happen this year.
People: The Lord is our helper; we will not be afraid.
If there is one thing to be said about the year ahead, it is that I am trying not to be afraid.
The many new things that will happen this year include moving away from the lake, taking a family trip to Europe, not getting to ski as much, living twice as far from Tandem, not seeing all the deer in my neighborhood on my walks and runs, and Bauer going to college in the fall. I know there are more but those are top of mind.
In my bathroom are two helpful reminders of what to do about what I feel. First is this page from a book by Susan Branch that I read last year.
And second is this little pin I bought for myself from The Makers Collective holiday pop-up shop.
Of course, prayer helps. I wrote a prayer that I can read every day to help me remember the things I want to be true about myself. Things like, I don’t want to live numbed out or afraid. I want to live fully alive and fully free. I want to experience You as a personal God who speaks to me. I want to trust You and be faithful in the small things and grow in maturity and love and self-control. And so on.
The Europe trip came about because three friends and I tried, and succeeded, in buying tickets to see Taylor Swift perform in Edinburgh, Scotland. Then TJ and I decided that the rest of our family would fly to London to meet me there on the day after the concert. So now we have a family trip to plan that will include London, Paris, Copenhagen, and maybe Rome. What started as a little-big trip has turned into a big-big trip. I was talking to God earlier this week about what it might be like to see what He made on the other side of the world. I haven’t wanted to, but then I realized maybe it will be interesting to see what else He made besides Saluda Lake and my fig tree and my grapevine and my beloved deer. Who will God be in the UK and Europe? Who will I be? Who will my family be? I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out.
One of my goals for this year is to read through all of my commonplace books. There are five of them, and I am doing what Gretchen Rubin encouraged when a task feels daunting. She says to suffer in 15-minute increments, meaning to just do a little bit of the big task each day until eventually it’s complete. I wouldn’t call reading my commonplace books suffering in the slightest but it does take intentionality to be consistent to show up to the task.
So far I’ve spent over four hours working on this goal. I’m on my second book, and it has been nothing but a delight to go back and see all the quotes I’ve copied and to remember why I liked (and still like) them so much. I am saying So Much Yes to so many lines in these books.
One of the best things I’ve rediscovered in my rereading is an essay by Caitlin Moran that I pasted into one of my commonplace books over ten years ago. The essay is called “My Posthumous Advice for My Daughter,” and if you want a copy, text me and I’ll mail you one (it’s short and very funny and also very important). I printed a bunch of copies and I am just waiting for people to give them to. The essay is basically Caitlin giving tips about what matters in life that she would want her daughter to know if she (Caitlin) passed away. My favorite part of the essay is this:
This segues into the next tip: life divides into AMAZING ENJOYABLE TIMES and APPALLING EXPERIENCES THAT WILL MAKE FUTURE AMAZING ANECDOTES. However awful, you can get through any experience if you imagine yourself, in the future, telling your friends about it as they scream, with increasing disbelief, ‘NO! NO!’ Even when Jesus was on the cross, I bet He was thinking, ‘When I rise in three days, the disciples aren’t going to believe this when I tell them about it.’ -Caitlin Moran
How about that for boosting morale for whatever does or does not happen as planned on this trip to Europe, or in the moving process, or in any other area of my life?
I have some other aspirations for the year ahead, like to finally get my radish tattoo, to buy something to wear to the Taylor Swift concert, to reconvene my tiny group with two old besties, to join Fickle, to finish my 2023 photo book, to make the Levain Bakery chocolate chip cookies and the Tartine shortbread, to try Chai Pani in Asheville, and to do better knowing what to buy TJ for gifts. He turns 47 this year, and since 47 is the quintessential random number, as well as mine and TJ’s favorite number, this is the birthday we’ve been waiting to celebrate with friends.
Some things feel fun and exciting as I anticipate them. Some things feel unknown and scary. Some things I will grieve the loss of, and others I will welcome warmly without even having to try. Gretchen Rubin said “Every year more places take on meaning,” and Alexander McCall Smith said “There was always work for hope to do.” These words point me, for the year ahead, to something beyond my little life of comfort and familiarity. I’ll be in new places, yes, but I’ll still have my family who loves me, and my friends who like me, and my books and my quotes and my poems, which nourish me. I’ll have God as my Helper, and exercise and coffee as my other helpers, and “of course, the sun, the purely pure sun, shining all the while, over all of us” (Mary Oliver).
And as if all that were not enough, I will also have another year of Taylor Swift’s music as the soundtrack to my life.
