Thursday Thoughts

Despite being a goal-setter, a list-maker and a person who actually finds filing and paperwork relaxing (making order from chaos), I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions, and I couldn't tell you definitively why.  Maybe it's because the kind of goals I set don't work for the implied timespan - this year, I will ... when it's a month-long project or five years of far-flung hopes - or wait around until the beginning of the year.  I just have never placed much importance in the symbolic revival that goes along with the cycle of numbers.

But maybe there is something to the turning of the year in awakening a sense of possibility, the expectation - is this going to be "the" year?  It's a silent race with yourself, tabulating what happens, what landmarks you pass, before the end of the year.  It's an arbitrary distinction ... but that's how we build definition in our lives.

So yes, I am working towards more successes as a writer - but I've never stopped.  I intend to be physically fit - but that's a process I've been working on for months.  Possibly the only real New Year's "resolution" I have is in the harp arena, and that's going back over my master tune-list and polishing pieces I haven't played in a while ... and that's less because it was meant as a resolution as because it coincided with the end of the Christmas season, which signaled my ability to concentrate on non-holiday music.

Of course, I started this year with a cold and then followed it up with a foot injury, so I suppose the message for me is there's nowhere to go but up.