Resolving to Make Daily Resolutions

This New Year’s Eve, as I look back on 2006 and look forward to 2007, I know that I am better than I was on 31 December 2005, that I have made progress on my personal journey through life. One year ago, I wrote about how I’m somewhat disappointed by the idea of resolutions made in earnest on New Year’s Eve and then abandoned by the 15th of January. Instead, I want self-reflection and self-consciousness to be a part of my daily life. How good might the world be if we all made self-reflection and self-consciousness a part of our daily lives?

In 2006, I came closer to this goal than in the year preceding it. For 2007, I resolve to get even better about my own self-awareness on a daily basis. There are many specific goals, dreams, and objectives that are part of my resolution to be more self-aware—-the usual sort of stuff: exercise more regularly, eat better; as well as the perhaps not so usual: learn to play my recorder. But ultimately, if on 31 December 2007 I can look back and feel that I am better than I was on 31 December 2006, if I am more of who I want to be and am expressing and experiencing more of what I value, then I have succeeded, even if only by the smallest measure. Today, 31 December 2006, I can say with confidence that I have succeeded this past year. And that’s a good thing.

Happy New Year to all.

Homeward Bound, I wish I weren't

They say one can never go home again. I've never believed this platitude. I do believe one can go home again, it's just that home is never the same and never as we expect or desire it to be. And that's OK.

But what happens when one doesn't in fact want to go home again?

Anniversaries

We tend to think of anniversaries as happy events—weddings, birthdays, and the like—and perhaps it’s good that we do. But there’s nothing inherently good and happy about an anniversary. Anniversaries merely mark the moment of an event, both good and bad events, happy and sad.

It’s been one year since Ms. Clover left. I still miss her and feel her absence sharply—today more than other days. She had a profound impact on my life and I feel love for her as deeply today as I did one year ago, and the eleven years before that.

Here’s to you Mama Cat. You’re not forgotten.