In the opening days of this year, I wrote two posts about my intentions for 2012. I did a check in post in February, and then forgot about the intentions until about 24 hours ago, when I realized, in the calm of my parents’ house, away from all my daily obligations and ceaseless motion, that intention setting seemed to work very well for me. Of course, I have no idea right now what my intentions are for 2013, and I’m a little intimidated by the prospect of setting intentions now that I’ve seen how well 2012’s worked out — I worry about setting the wrong ones and missing opportunities. But that is a worry for next week, a project for the flight home.
For now, I’m going to do what I rarely do, which is take stock of some good stuff and think about how it might have happened so that perhaps it can happen again. So here is my original list of intentions, and the follow up of how they manifested themselves throughout this year.
1. Don’t fight lucky strangers. In other words, don’t get unmoored when someone else turns up pregnant. This is still, forever, a long term project. Even a few weeks ago, I was very reluctant to have dinner with the woman who I wrote about in these posts. This will always be a work in progress for me. I think I’m better able to weather these storms than last year — at least until another storm unmoors me.
2. Continue to be brave. I am being brave. I am writing a book (more on that below) and am being brave that way. I am being brave in my relationship with Daniel, and blessedly it doesn’t feel so much like being brave, it feels more like doing what I want to do. It’s nice to think that perhaps bravery is becoming a way of life. The more I think about it, the more places I choose to see it, especially if I expand the definition to include things like being more self-directed about my time and money, and therefore taking an extra hour out of my work day to go to yoga, and taking control of long-delayed house expenditures and saving up the money to pay for them. That may not be what others call brave, but I’m (bravely?) defining it that way because it all seems to be of a piece. (See also “take up space” below.)
3. Corollary to #2: Be present in what I have, and balance that with staying open and welcoming miracles. Well, this year has been more about the first part of that, being present in what I have. I am skeptical and sore about miracles, and I’m okay with that. I have enjoyed more paintings in the sky, more flowers, more deep breaths, more beautiful faces, more excellent food, more spontaneous pleasures than I have before. Lisa at Privilege wrote something about this yesterday (or so) that resonated: “But most any time I get melancholy I can startle myself into a tiny rapture by paying attention. I find my way forward most often via a conscious waiting for the sadness to pass through, and a parallel close observation of exactly what’s right there.”
4. Write a book. Yes! Yes I am writing a book. I wrote 25,000 publishable words this year. I wrote many many more unpublishable words, or words unpublishable in their current order. But holy crumbs — that’s three really solid, well-footnoted, lucidly laid out chapters, plus most of the interviews done for the fourth. My co-author has been much busier with other things and therefore less diligent, but I think we’ll have a book by May. A book I said, a book! I did not think I could do this. I did not think this would happen. But it has, and it has because I made it happen. I took control of my time, and I wrote paragraph after paragraph knowing that these weren’t the right paragraphs but I could only get to the right paragraphs by going through the wrong paragraphs. I have learned an enormous amount. I have taught others an enormous amount. I taught myself how to write a book. I finally feel like I know how to work — after 18 years in the workforce. I finally understand how to take the next steps, I finally can draw on all this stored up knowledge I’ve been gathering. I could go on and on about this. Writing this book this year has been a huge milestone for me, a tremendous step forward. Hooray for me.
Someone read one of my chapters and asked “Is fiction in your future?” I have ideas for 3 novels. This writing stuff is pretty addictive.
5. Meditate for 10-15 minutes a day at work. Um no. This didn’t work out. I have a deep respect for meditation, and it does great things for me, but I am not open now to making it a regular practice in this way. I don’t know why, but I recognize that I am not putting any energy into making it happen.
That said, I do a quick review/intention-setting/check-in every morning. I read about it in a Yoga Journal article which isn’t available online, but the book from which the practice is taken is here. This practice has had a profound effect on me. I chose to focus on four intentions in it: forgiveness, compassion, fearlessness and prudence. My marriage has improved beyond what I could have hoped, and I am certain it is because I am keeping forgiveness and compassion in my brain. I don’t always practice it perfectly, and Daniel and I had some horrific fights this year, but I am getting beyond some old, bad stuff. Daniel seems different to me, and maybe he’s got his own practice of some kind of thing going on, but I think the difference is me and my eyes to see him.
Sometime this year, Sister was telling me that her marriage just got itself to a better place, and I thought, “That is simply impossible, I can’t do that, we can’t do that.” But we have, for now, and I believe it started when I started to do this very simple morning intention practice, which doesn’t even require me to sit up before I get out of bed.
6. Be harder on my body. This has worked. I am taking 3-4 yoga classes a week most weeks. I tried other practices, even running again, but the answer to the limits of yoga was… more yoga! Practicing alone isn’t the same as being in class with a great teacher. And practicing several times a week is much more effective at keeping me open than practicing once a week. I didn’t understand how much I was closing up between classes until I no longer had time to close up. This is all yoga-speak here, but I had been practicing for almost 15 years without having a good understanding of my midline and how to pull in around it and use it for balance. I couldn’t access my core very well, or open up my back, and now I can. I can’t do all the dazzling poses, and that’s okay. I can get so much more out of basic poses now.
7. Take up space. This is happening as well, not necessarily because of conscious effort, but because of greater comfort with exercising force in the world in terms of my use of my time and my money — which are the force-making tools that are most readily accessible to me right now.
8. Move to France. In other words, buy more nice underwear. Yes to that, although it’s been erratic. I’ve also spent much more on accessories, and less on clothes (maybe — I haven’t done the math and am a bit scared to) this year than in the past and am loving how well it’s worked out. This post is already overlong, so I won’t go into much detail, but I do feel like I’ve finally nailed down what I want to look like and am sticking to it. (Short version: Like this — a revelation!, and like this. Slightly longer version: Tomboy – 1/2 (JCrew/Preppy) + 2x French.) To say nothing of a huge surge in skincare spending and experimentation. (As the book writing has become more intense and stressful, I am almost compulsively buying new oils, unguents, and balms.) It all feels very French to me!
9. Date again. (Daniel — go on dates with Daniel) Um, no. Not yet. We had a good run of parties and events throughout December, but I can’t pretend that this has been a success.
10. Let Daniel have his own feelings, even if they make me uncomfortable. See 5, above. I am probably not doing better at this, but it seems less pressing. I am putting less stress and less anxiety on/into our marriage, so perhaps it’s easier to step back and let Daniel feel as he feels. He just seems so much easier to live with of late, and I’m pretty sure he’s the same as ever, it’s just that I’m not making it harder. I do find myself trying — often too late — to do things differently when we are having a version of our standard fights.
11. Give money to Yoga Activist. Yes — as of about 10 days ago. I got a solicitation email and realized that they had set up an automatic donation system, so I am giving them the bare minimum each month to be a “member.” This was purely fortuitous, because I was steadfastly ignoring my calendar reminder.
12. Learn to poach an egg. I did this very early on, then realized that I prefer fried.
I wish all my dear readers (if I have any left) every merriment, happiness, and celebration.
Another Door 