Happy New Year to my friends and family in different countries and time zones! Sending you all love and best wishes for a peaceful 2021. May your hearts, minds, and bellies be full.
As strange as this year has been, I’m grateful for the birds it’s brought to me, along with visits to the beach and the local plant nursery. This morning, I spent an extraordinary amount of time lost in the beauty of this stone. I turned it in my hands, felt its heft, imagined the gaps filled with crustaceans. I paid nothing for it, and yet it is easily among the nicest things I have acquired this year. And all I did was take a walk.
In not being able to go anywhere, and my own resolve to keep a very close eye on our spending, (two years ago, I did a Year of No Superfluous Spending and it was terrific) I think 2020 has taught and reinforced lessons in frugal beauty, and for that I’ll always be grateful. I’ve had the nicest students this year; I’ve received food, books, letters, and postcards from friends; I’ve attended several wonderful events thanks to Zoom. But I’ve also lost people this year; I have been homesick beyond measure on having to miss my brother’s wedding; I have had both terrific and terrible days stuck at home with my husband, and I’ve worried about a 100 more things.
By far, the most life-changing habit that this year has inculcated in me has come through Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. This book, intended not just for artists, has reminded me of the value of daily record-keeping. In the past, I’ve never been able to journal for longer than 4-5 days at the most. Mostly, I’ve scoffed at the idea. “My life isn’t extraordinary enough to merit daily updates.” But it is. Everyone’s is. Especially as a means to reflect, plan, and still.
Yesterday was my 290th day of journaling. I am no longer following exactly the method taught by Cameron but committing to her book back in March, meant sticking to it for several weeks in a row. That sealed the habit. And now I can’t sleep without jotting down ten sentences about the day. They are often mind-numbingly repetitive and far from exciting. There are, after all, only as many ways as you can write, “Must clean fridge tomorrow.” But they are observations of a life lived through the pandemic, a record of this strange time, and reflecting upon them has been a way for me to feel like I have a grasp over Time.
The daily journaling practice has also led to other, meaningful, daily habits, so I end the year with the utmost gratitude for many people and things, like that second-hand bookstore from where Julia Cameron’s teachings entered my life and made a permanent home.