Go Slowly

The New Year has been around only a week and daily I feel this urge to tackle my goals with full force.  The restraint of the go slowly approach is working, I can sense it, yet my old self wants high speed and crash.

That latter method means I can try with one big push and then give up.  The attempt will offer a rush of excitement and then the familiar I-told-you-so failure.  I want it like a crash diet ending in a pile of sweets.

Instead, I am quietly working behind the scenes.  Working towards the more day-to-day goals with a first check-in with myself next week.  The desire to skip the stretches, the prep work, the introductory phase and jump to some middle place is powerful.  We all know where we end when we don't stretch thoroughly before a run or carefully read the directions before making something.

It's the initial disappointment over devoting fifteen minutes a day to a project, thinking that you will never accomplish anything at that rate, until weeks later you find yourself astonished at how a little bit daily has actually added up to something meaningful without your even noticing.

At this not-too-much-at-a-time pace I can truly observe subtle, unexpected happenings from an aerial view.  A phone call from a friend not on my list I weave in like a loose thread; a date chosen for a niece's wedding months from now means September is already filling up.  On New Year's Day we talked about upcoming holidays and school vacations without my cutting off the conversation.  Having already walked myself through the year in my mind, heart and body, I was far less anxious.

 I'm on a long road trip with plenty of treats, books, and music to keep me occupied.  I can't even dare ask if we're there yet.  I need to sit back and enjoy the view from the window.

Toast And Fruit To Start

I expect I ought to bring you something grand today, a big statement of my intentions for the new year or a sparkly review of a long holiday that had an exciting beginning, relaxing, playing games by the fire middle and an active, fireworks-inclusive end.

Another version could be a cookie baking and sampling frenzied beginning, an eating at least two a day middle, and an I can't eat any more cookies end.

Instead, I bring you a diptych of my breakfast this morning: homemade, seeded sourdough, yogurt and a clementine.  Perfectly reflective of a healthier trend, yet just what I like. 

I struggle a bit with January 1st as the beginning.  A more natural starting place to me is September, the start of the school year, the change of season, or even late December on the Winter Solstice, marking the voyage out as the days begin to lengthen.

This year, however, I'm going with the flow of the calendar year.  I seemed to hit a solid place for reflection in December, and humbly found a need to change calendar systems, reverting to old fashioned paper.

According to the saleswoman who helped me pick out my Filofax, even the twentysomethings buy paper agendas.   I felt better knowing that the need to write important events down and plan with a pen does not have anything to do with age.

I devoted considerable time to setting up my areas of focus for the year and a method for assessing progress.  My word, SHAPING, makes me smile because it fits just right.

And it's not just the physical that needs shaping.  I have ideas for our home, my friendships, plans and goals for this blog, our family, and countless new bread recipes to try. 

If my breakfast diptychs turn to bowls of oatmeal, you will know I am way serious.  But that's not the state I am in today, as that would be too harsh a beginning.

Finding gardening metaphors useful, I will tell you that my new rose-patterned pruning shears I received for Christmas are still sitting neatly in their box under the tree.

It's January, there is no pruning going on yet.  I don't even have the year's seed catalogs.