the page after the last day 2017
The calendar rolled over to another year while I was sleeping soundly and peacefully. (I don’t like to say “Happy New Year” in advance. What if I die before midnight? The person I said it to might have a happy one, but if I’m dead I’m likely not a happy camper.) I’m too old to stay up all night. If I make it past nine, that’s a late night. The last time I saw the ball drop was in 2000 – Y2K. I had to stay up to see if the world was going to end or not. (It didn’t.)
I spent the entire month of December doing nothing but scribbling furious notes on my NaNoWriMo effort of November. I thought I might want to open the file and start working, but I know from experience that most writing has to marinate in silence for a time. You can’t hurry it, you have to let the words age like a fine wine. A couple of weeks doesn’t do it. A month is long, but sometimes not long enough. A year is probably a good number. 🙂 Actually, twenty or thirty or forty years is a fairly good expanse of time. When a writer looks at aged work, it’s with a more objective eye that when the writing is fresh and new. Kind of like the difference between looking at your brand new baby and looking at the same person as a teenager.
So! I survived!
Resolutions: I don’t like to call them that, because to resolve to do something doesn’t seem quite strong enough. Self-cattle-prodding is more like it. Or cross my heart and hope to not die. I only want to accomplish one thing (clearly I will not lose weight or eat sensibly – life is too short!), and that is to make an entry EVERYDAY in my Hobonichi. (I thought about daily blogging, but that’s a huge commitment. I did it for my experience, My Life in Instagram 2013, but that was all Instagram photos.) I nearly filled my Hobonichi Techo last year, missing only a handful of days. This year the journal WILL BE completely covered from the first to the last page.
I will try to do more on this blog and others I maintain, but I can’t promise. Who knew that life would be more complex after the kids are gone? With any luck, the current hurricane of events will settle down by the end of the month and then I can resume the rest of my life.
The other big project I’ll be working on is the Great Purge (continued). Got to get ready to move out of the massive house into something more sensible for two people, a dog, a cat, and a Steinway. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!
And I promise to release Virtually Yours Forever. Because that one has marinated way too long.
Other than that, I’ll be living clean and light. The best way to go.
Happy New Year, y’all. (Now that we are firmly into 2018.)
