BLANK SHEET

First Breakfast for 2015

A new year is about to start. A blank sheet. A time to start afresh. Begin anew. Clear away the old and bring in the new. Make resolutions.

But do we really start anew? Aren't we just carrying the old into the new? Do we really have a blank sheet or we just trying to erase the old stuff from the past. Trying to make that old sheet, with its tattered corners and imprints of the past, just look new.

I don't believe in New Year resolutions. Lose weight. Quit smoking. Exercise more. Drink less. Spend less. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. They're just social conventions. The world trying to be your 'mother'. Wash your face. Clean your room. Eat your vegetables. Don't hit your sister. We are all adults. We know that we probably need to lose weight. We understand the health implications of smoking. We know the benefit of exercising more and drinking less. We know. I know. Why do I need to make it a rule in my life? Why do we, I, have to make a 'resolution' to change the way I am?

I don't make resolutions. They are a waste of my time. This year, though, The Year of the Chicken, I'm doing something different. This year, 2015, no resolutions. This year, 2015, only solutions.

1. Laugh - Laugh, long and loud and often and with friends and with family and with strangers. Laugh when it is appropriate and, sometimes even, when it's not appropriate. When something is funny. When I’m in a good mood. When it feels right. And when I am asked to be quiet, to stop laughing, I’ll just ask them to join in. No one has the right to change my mood, my feelings. So I will laugh.

2. Acceptance, grace, humility - Understand what is within my power to change. Because it is my choice to instigate those changes. And, it is my right to make those changes. However, I should also understand and acknowledge where I do not have the right to expect change and I will accept this with grace and humility.

3. Feel nature – I will lie on the grass. Feel the sun on my face. Taste the rain on my tongue. Squish mud between my toes. Smell the sweetness of soil. I will embrace the stillness of the night. Watch the sky, the clouds, the birds, the insects, the leaves. Feel the seasons. Enjoy the movement of the year through nature.

4. Cry - Embrace the release of a good cry. Feel the stickiness of my tears in my eyelashes, taste their saltiness on my lips. Feel the wetness around my nose and mouth and the tightening across my forehead. I will cry until I am spent, until no more tears will come, until all the sadness has flowed from my body and emotional exhaustion has replaced it. I will then find a loved one, my husband, my family, my friends, and hug them until I am full again.

5. Eat and drink and enjoy - Eat chocolate. Drink wine. Eat peaches. Drink strong tea. Eat. But I must not forget to savour them. I won’t gobble them down. Or slurp them up. Or forget to taste.  I will nibble and sip and suck and lick and let it sit on my tongue for a minute longer. I will let it dissolve, melt, swirl around my mouth. Taste it, like I am eating for the last time.

6. Think, plan, daydream – I will make dreams. It doesn't matter if they don't come true. I will make them anyway. They will be outrageous. And they will be big. They will be bright and coloured and fantastic. If just one comes true, then I will celebrate. If none come true, I will celebrate anyway. Then start again.

7. Write - I may not be great. I may not even be good. But this belongs to me and it cannot be taken away. I will recognise when to start and know when to stop. And I will know when it helps and use it to sooth and calm and comfort.

8. Plant a seed - watch it grow. I will plant seeds, lots of them. Then watch them grow. I will repeat this often. Repeat this everywhere. Repeat this forever.

9. Fill in the holes - Colour in the blanks - Stitch up the cracks - Smooth over the lines. Take time to heal and grow and flourish and breathe and smile and surf and dig and travel and plan and write and hug and sleep and eat and ...

These are my solutions, not resolutions. Designed to be cherry picked when they are needed. Not to be used as instructions or as a schedule. For they will be at their best when they just appear, in a spontaneous moment.

2015 is not a new year, it’s a different year. A flow on from the last year. It can't but help to pick up some of the flotsam and jetsam from the previous year. To deal with the residue of 2014 I don't need resolutions, what I need is solutions.

Because 2016 is coming and it also won't be a new year.