As I stand where I am this brisk and monochrome morning, grinding my coffee as I always do in my grandmother’s wooden box grinder, I consider how I want to begin this new year. 2008 has certainly been a wild ride: very huge highs and very deep lows and, to my surprise and awe, somewhere in the middle… it just evened out. I am grateful for my good fortunes and, for once, I don’t feel the need to furiously bury the past year under stacks of new year’s hopes.
This is why, when my Beloved and I came home to our animal house last night from a good couple of hour’s cheer with friends, he and I agreed to just be doing “nothing” when the clock struck midnight. Merely eating our scrumptious homemade meal and watching a movie. I want the blessings of 2008 to continue on into 2009. No old doors slamming shut, no kaleidoscope-fantastic portals opening… Indeed, no big whoop.
Selected Acknowledgements for the Crooked Roads of 2008:
I love that my family and friends know me well enough to ask at the beginning of our phone conversations: “So where are you now?” It makes me happy to feel known in that way.
I kept in contact with loved ones better last year and for this I feel accomplished. Even though my time and, more importantly, focus goes to teaching for 18 hours a day, I want to reach out better to many more pals, even if it is at random hours or I am feeling slightly braindead. After all, my friends are amazing and worthwhile! Why not call even when I am a little braindead so that we can perk each other up?
Texas reaffirmed that making art in the middle of nowhere is an indispensable odyssey and is one of the many hearts of my artist’s practice. However it comes and however I craft it, travel and site-specific work are necessary to my work’s survival. Ghost towns, here I come!
I finished a book for the first time in possibly a decade or more. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It took me 6 months to complete, but I did it. Reluctantly, I concede that I don’t possess the wherewithal to still myself and read books (or even sit and write!), this year I will experiment with audiobooks, beginning with Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up and Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.
To Soap Opera’s diligent inception and the bright future of Scary Movie Party: let the insatiable creativity never end! Thank you, friends.
I told one of the many non-profits that I work for a couple of years ago that I wanted to do more work with them. When it rains, it pours, but happily this time! For the first time in my 9 years of teaching, I did not have to fear for my general city survival this winter and wait a dismal, anxious 3 months for my programs to start. Truly, I do not know what to do with money that doesn’t quickly slip through my fingers and I need to be careful, especially as so many others are sliding down the economy’s chute of darkness. Hopefully, I will continue to work that out in 2009 and beyond.
President Barack Obama and his pragmatic and hopeful approach to the splintered wheel of American Politicks. He is just one human, as we all are. So let us all come together and stay together these next 8 years. Let the positive impact be infinite.
My Beloved still goes away. My Beloved still comes back. He will always be my Beloved. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.
My first adventure of the new year will already be this Saturday the 3rd. I am on the hunt for frozen waterfalls. Here we go, pup! To beginning our 14th year together…
I wish a bountiful and prosperous new year to you all. Keep up the good work.
I really enjoyed your thoughtful and well written post. Keep writing.
Thanks! I appreciate you reading. I look forward to reading more about your adventures!