New Years Resolutions

It's been a whirlwind year, this 2005. Personally, it's been a year of epiphanies and awakenings. That's really surprising to this old biddie who thought that such things belonged to the young just starting out with eyes wide open on a vast new world. So it was with great amazement that I found myself in four different courses of study--one professional and three artistic--opening myself again and again with wide-eyed wonder to this vast world we live in. I traveled--Phoenix and NYC--I love to travel!

What I learned again this year is that I have been swallowing back, holding down enormous amounts of my self and my psyche for a long time. I've really been holding me back and putting others first. Others will go on quite well regardless of what I do, and the results of holding myself back have been very harmful to my health and to my spirit and to my creative muse.

Creations have gushed out of me this year, this blog only records some of them, but is a good indicator for me that I have been very busy. While I am very much a student, learning from art quilt masters and printmakers, I am at least thinking about where I might go on my own after this self-made apprenticeship. Color, lots of bold color is important to me. Like the colors of the chakras, they provide a healthy energy for me.

This New Year's Eve I find myself alone for a couple of hours and I'm enjoying the quiet, my music, and some candles. I read a fine essay by Katherine Paterson, my all time favorite author of books for children. In the essay she quotes Jim Wallis, activist theologian as saying, " I now believe that the real battle, the big struggle of our times, is the fundamental choice between cynicism and hope. The choice between cynicism and hope is ultimately a spiritual choice, and one that has enormous political consequences."

I am too often the cynic, it's the easy way. My New Year's Resolution, then, is to work to be a person of hope.That's who I am at bedrock, but the job, and the relationships, and the war, and the injustices make me the cynic. Cynics just talk about it; people of hope do something about it. I'd like to be a better worker this year.

Naturally, I'd like to be thin, that'll never happen, quoth the cynic. But if I could work at healthier habits, maybe some of this weight would come off.

I'd like to find some joy on the job. I've just finished a hellish 4 years, with another tough one looming ahead. Some joy would make the hard work there a little easier to bear.

I resolve to keep making art. How far might I travel given a second year like this one? I am joyful and healthy when I make art, the quilts, the knitting, the prints. I will continue to work in these three areas.

There's more, but I will settle on these because if I concentrate here, other resolutions will be worked through in due course.