Friends, clients, colleagues, readers, tipsters and sources,
Happy new year, and thanks for stopping by my website.
Mom used to say that the state of your life – your mood, your surroundings, your laundry – on New Year’s Eve foretold the way your life would unfold the following year. For Mom (No Martha Stewart, mind you), this belief led to frantic housecleaning and laundry in the hours leading up to midnight. Her habit, probably an Old Country tradition mixed with some vague religious concept of cleansing, made a certain sense.
For years, I followed her lead, accepting that Dec. 31 to Jan. 1 offers a once-a-year chance to clean up and start over – a literal and metaphorical clean slate. But the recent holiday passed without my cleaning frenzy or earnest list of all the ways I’ll improve myself in 2020. A few years ago I experienced a Bartleby-the-scrivener moment and thought, “I would prefer not to.”
Yes, I have chores to complete and a never-ending list of errands and deadlines.
But why before midnight Jan. 1? Am I really destined to a horrible year if I don’t rid the dining room floor of Christmas cookie crumbs immediately?
I do have modest goals for the new year and the new decade. I hope to read more books. Experience more music and theater and art. Say “yes” to invitations and invite more people for tea. Laugh a lot. Cry when I must, and move on when I can. Look up. Enjoy the moment. Have a good life.
I will – eventually – sweep away the crumbs, remake the guest room bed and store the holiday ornaments. I’m comfortable with the half-read magazines, the piles of overdue library books and baskets of unfolded laundry. I’ll never read everything in my TBR pile. My bucket list overflows with future adventures. If I cross off one to-do, another task emerges.
My life overflows with interesting projects, places to visit, books to read, people to treasure. Mine is a messy, hectic and full life. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Renée
P.S. Contact me any time to discuss potential assignments, or just to say hello.