Resolution

"Don't make resolutions, you will only disappoint yourself." (Comedienne on NPR) Regardless of what one thinks about resolutions, the new year seems to me to be a good time to take stock. What went well in the year past? What is it time to change? What is missing? What do I love or want to do; and what is keeping me from it? Make a plan. Name it resolution, name it intention, name it goals, name it whatever you want, but resolve to do something. There is a saying, I forget who coined it, "If you don't make plans, someone will make them for you." Status quo is the scariest word in the lexicon.

I generally don't fail at keeping resolutions because those I make tend to be intangible. They are not measurable, or even well-defined. I resolve to be awake every day. Someday, when I look back on my life, I may not be able to name great things I have done or recall specific moments, but I want to know that I lived with awareness most every day. I resolve to really see the birds at my feeder, smell the rainy air, touch the coldness of snow and the feel the warmth of the sun. I do not resolve to spend 10 minutes every day looking at the clouds. I resolve to be with my friends in heart and spirit when they are going through difficult days. I do not promise to be physically with them because that would involve their resolutions, their needs, and their desires; and I can only resolve for myself. I resolve to look for ways to live a healthy lifestyle. I do not promise to walk 30 minutes every day or lose 10 pounds.

Those are intentions from past years, and ones that are ongoing. My resolution for this year came to me from my friend Charly's blog this week. Charly is a modern-day nomad. This winter her home is with her daughter in Indiana. (In the summers she works and plays in national parks in the west.) She is engaging in Meet-ups to meet people with whom to be out in the world while encamped in the mid-west. Charly, like me, is an introvert and comfortable in solitude. But she pushes herself in a way that I have not. Just before Christmas she got a call from someone she had met only a couple of times. The acquaintance had unexpectedly been given three tickets to WICKED in Indianapolis--about an hour and a half from Charly. She called and offered one to Charly because she knew her to be "willing."

That word willing attached itself in me like a burr in dog hair. What would it be like to be known as willing? Last year I resolved to be more open. I have had some success--again, nothing measurable, so no failure. I tried Match.com. I opened to new friendships. I opened to acceptance of friendships lost. I opened my thoughts to the world through this blog. But willing? Willing. I have also resolved in the past to allow myself to turn inward. To say "no" to things and people because I needed to nest. Can I turn that around now? Can I push myself to say "yes!" to invitations, even those issued at the last minute? Can I be spontaneous? Will my friends even ask--they are so accustomed to reluctance and declined invitations. I think it will have to start with me. I will need to look for things to do and issue the invitations to them; and not stop asking just because they say no. I will need to keep finding new ways to be open.

Sometimes, in spite of our best intentions, resolution to engage in something falls by the wayside. It becomes us for a while, and then we let it slip. That's okay. Knowing that it might not be what we needed after all, or that we may not be able to follow through or keep it up shouldn't keep us from engaging. If it doesn't follow a straight path, we can know it is following the right path at the right time.

In exploration of a previous year's resolution to be physically healthy, I joined the YMCA and eventually began a yoga practice. One of the life lessons it has taught me is that yoga is listening to your body and doing each pose in the way that feels right in that unique moment. Sometimes you back off and sometimes you can go deeper. Sometimes a resolution is full and clearly in mind and sometimes it burrows deep in the heart and hides from view. As I wrote the first entry for the year in my journal yesterday, I looked back at those from the beginning of last year. I was dismayed to find that the entries were nearly identical. Has nothing changed? “It was the long years of these same few thoughts that wore tracks in my interior life.” (Annie Dillard) One of the things I wrote was that I needed to stop the verbal diarrhea that I have been writing in my journal most weeks for the past dozen years and do something different with that time. I am resolving that again: to work through some of my many writing books with their prompts. That I didn't do it in 2010 just means it wasn't right yet. And this year maybe it will be, and maybe it won't.

If all relationships or all activities had to be forever to be worth engaging in, we would never love and we would never create. Snow people last only until the air warms; sand castles only until the tide comes in. And yet we are compelled to create them. Why do we feel like so much else needs to be forever to be worth doing? Nothing is permanent; and we don't even have to have the illusion that it is. Just do it. Do it until you stop. Love. Love until love goes. Create. Create until you are tired of it and then create something else. Resolve. Resolve until it doesn't work anymore, and then resolve the next thing that feels important. One of the friends I met through my three months on Match sent an email this week that touched something in me. Not a new idea, of course, but a reminder. And it doesn't apply only to people, but I keep coming back to our need for others to be in our life. A portion of it, slightly modified by me, said:

Some people come into our lives for a time.

They come to share, grow, or learn. 

They bring us an experience of peace or make us laugh or hold our tears. 

They may teach us something we have never known. 

They usually give us an unbelievable amount of joy. 

Believe it, it is real.

If only for a time.

On the first day of this new year I spent some time thinking about relationships of the past few years. Some have ended, all have changed, as is the way of the ebb and flow of the universe. But from all, I have learned important lessons and ways of being. I want to share them. Some won't read this; some of you will recognize yourself; many of you don't know these friends of mine. Perhaps you will find a resolve needed in your own life. To those of you who recognize yourself: Thank you. These are not the only lessons I have learned from you, but they are ones that feel important to me in this moment as I look toward a new year. From all of you I have learned to keep moving forward.

D: See art in life--life as art. Art is in the seeing and the being, not only in the doing.
S: Feel deeply and don't be afraid to show it. Trust your emotions with those who love you.
L: Live wide open. Put yourself out there. Show people you love that they are important to you.
N: Relationship can be a safe place to use your words.
G: Make space and time for making art.
K: Connect with yourself first. Connection with another will come in its own time and when you are not looking.
P: Go where you are led, and take the curves where they come.
K: Question, ask, explore.
C: Do it scared.
V: Grace opens doors.
Rebecca: Do what you love. Follow your dream. Keep sight of it through the nightmarish parts.
Jo Ann: Don't wait, even while you are waiting.
Nicholas: Be tenacious. Don't give up. What you long for will come your way in its time.
Emma: Go boldly and fully.
Mother: Life is not over until it's over. Keep living.