Imagining lower consequences:

New Years resolutions, reading and listening, journaling, writing, Substack cadence

This year has started with a bubbling, popping kind of energy. Instead of making the typical New Years resolutions that I’ve forgotten by the following December, I made a few just for January and made them less rigid. I also picked a word for the month: lightness.

Thinking light, thinking put down what’s heavy, thinking imagine lower consequences, has been so helpful. One thing I keep putting down is the pressure to pick just one thing.

Photo by Cristian Escobar on Unsplash

Some ways I’ve been playing with lightness:

Reading and listening. I’m deep into reading and listening to several things at once, which I don’t usually do. Hopping in and out has felt good and even a little devious. And recently, they’ve all felt like they are in conversation with each other. I’m reading Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson and Time of the Child by Naill Williams and On Writing by Stephen King and The Way Forward by Yung Pueblo. And I’m listening to The Ritual Effect by Dr. Michael Norton (the perfect recommendation for this ritual-lover) and The Telepathy Tapes (I could write a whole essay—or four—about this podcast). Thanks to the friends and readers who recommended all of these!

Journaling. In addition to my regular morning journaling, I’m starting to read bits of the journals my grandma kept in a series of calendar daybooks for over twenty years. On January 2, I opened the earliest of these journals, from 1992, and got chills. January 2, 1992 was a Thursday, just like January 2 this year. A small but satisfying coincidence. Reading my grandma’s journals each morning before pulling out my own has brought such a lovely sense of the long view and we’re-all-connected feeling.

Writing. After a few hours torturing myself with thoughts of how to integrate a new idea I’ve been excited to write about into the novel I’m working on, I decided I didn’t need to know right now. I could sketch out the idea and keep editing at the same time.

Substack cadence. Over the past month, I’ve realized that a weekly pace sometimes doesn’t feel right for this Substack. But I’m not sure yet what does. So, in the spirit of lightness and not forcing choices, I plan to experiment a bit. For now, I’ll be back in two weeks, on January 24.

One other thing my New Years energy drew me to do was go through The Creative Sort subscriber list and take time to feel gratitude to each of you for making this newsletter a part of your life, at whatever cadence feels right to you to read. From my light, less decisive New Years heart to yours—thank you.