Start, Stop, Keep
Instead of resolutions this year, I believe I will ponder this three-word rubric that I used when I taught writing. It’s quite simple: what are you going to START doing, what are you going to STOP doing, and what are you going to KEEP doing in 2009?
One new start is an e-book I hope to finish and have available for download. Actually, there are two of those. I also will be taking an illustration class in addition to painting. A third start is more practical: I’m going to start the remodel project in the kitchen.
I want to stop grieving, but I don’t see how that’s possible or healthy. And in the interest of health, I will also stop the guilt and fill the large void it leaves with some nice green leafy vegetables.
I am going to keep painting. Which surprises me a little because my paintings are following an abstract path that I never would have predicted. I thought I would be doing paintings much like my flower photography, but instead they are wild, sometimes angry bursts of color, and I’m planning on adding fabric and fiber elements, as well as thick texture to them. I am also going to keep doing yoga — it does more for me than probably even I am aware of.
Where this plan will end up, I don’t know. I cannot even remember New Year’s Eve of last year, except that I was saying goodbye to a very bad horrible no good year. I thought 2008 would be better, and maybe I will look back and think that, but right now, I’m so focused on moving forward that it’s not useful to get back to that place.
It does seem useful to look back over the year’s accomplishments to find wisdom and direction from them, so I will be doing that this weekend.