Reruns: January Posts Worth Revisiting

Just as I close out a calendar year with a review of the past 12 months, some Januarys I begin with a scan of what lies ahead. I don't make formal resolutions, necessarily, but I might set an intention. 

The word "intention" has its roots in "tendere", to stretch, with the prefix "in" to mean toward. A stretching toward—intention as something active, not passive. I learned the Sanskrit word sankalpa from a yoga nidra practice I use on those rare nights when I find it hard to fall asleep. San means “to become one with” and kalpa means “time” and “subconscious mind.” 

Not all of my January posts involve stretching toward something or becoming one with time and my subconscious mind, but a few do. Others involve me taking on someone else's idea of January as a good time to put out a listicle.

These are generally listed in reverse chronological order. Where I wrote more than one piece and they flow together logically, I've listed them here in the reading order you would have encountered if you subscribed to posts here or on my Bike Style blog.

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Slow Down

On grateful.org they pose a question a day in a community space. One that I thought about from multiple angles: "Where, or when, could I create a bit of space to truly slow down?"

Photo of yellow diamond-shaped traffic sign with text SLOW DOWN. Sign is against a clear blue sky.


"Truly slowing down" may or may not be a desirable goal. I can read this question multiple ways.

Slow down: Don't be so hard on yourself for not getting 5,247 things done every day. 

I've gotten much better at that with age. Even if I had an empty in-box when I stop working tonight, more would show up tomorrow. There is no "done", there is doing and being.

Slow down: Don't try to multitask. 

My brain works well when I have many plates spinning and I enjoy that feeling of being able to shift from one topic to the next to the next (which is what's really happening when people say they're multitasking; we're actually processing in serial, not parallel). Each serves to cross-fertilize with the others. But they need time for that fertilization process.

Slow down: Don't over-commit or sign up for things you don't really want to do. 

OK, yes, I could work on this a bit and say "enough" when my plate is as full as I want it to be. When I do that I feel both guilt and relief. I remind myself the answer isn't just "no" to this, it's "yes" to something else.

Slow down: Giving your best doesn't require giving your everything.

In my younger years I sometimes burned the candle at both ends and from the middle and loved the intensity even if it wore me out at times. As a result of that investment (and recognizing that I have privilege that contributed as well) I’ve been able to build a career that means I don’t have to run at quite the same pace but I still feel the intensity and commitment.

Slow down: Don't work all the time. 

I'm very good at having real weekends. I read, I go for a long walk with my sweet husband to downtown, we might decide to go out for lunch, I might do a big cooking extravaganza, which is one of my favorite activities. Ditto for real evenings; when I sign off at the end of the workday I'm off and I ask my staff to do the same.

Slow down: Pay attention. 

I've had mindfulness practices in one form or another for years now. All of them embed some form of "pay attention". I can take a brisk walk for the health benefits of active movement and pay attention to the shapes and colors of fall leaves, the flash of white on a dove's back as it takes flight to join the whole flock of them that likes to roost in a tall pine tree I can see out my kitchen window, the sound of the frog that croaks somewhere in a neighbor's yard, the colors of the flowers my neighbor at the corner carefully selects so we have beauty all season long, the two-tone whistle of a bird I have yet to identify.

I can talk with my sweetheart or my daughters and make sure I'm really paying attention, not listening with half an ear while I work on something else. 

I can savor and appreciate the flavors of foods I'm eating or the aroma of something I'm cooking.

Slow down: Remember to breathe.

On my desk I keep a rock I found on one of my walks. It has three sides visible when it sits on its flat bottom side. On each of these I've written one word: Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. Some days when I feel as if I haven't really done that, I pick it up and hold it for a couple of full, slow breaths.

Slow down: Make room for slow.

Related reading

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The Rocker, Refinished

I hauled my Grandma Humphrey's rocker around for years before finally doing something about its beyond shabby appearance. It was special to me so I didn't want to give up on it, and last year I vowed to reclaim it.

Fast forward to having our house undergo a major remodel that included new flooring. This meant everything had to come up off the floor and go into a pod parked in our driveway. Rather than stuff the rocker with its peeling paint into the depths of the pod for something like three months, I finally ran to ground a furniture refinisher who said she could do it.

Reagan needed a photo of the rocker to give me an estimate. The easiest way to send that was to send her the blog post I wrote about this rocking chair's history.

Photo of a wooden rocking chair with a reddish wood stain sitting on beige carpet in the glow of a small lamp. The back of the rocker has rounded spindles, with the one closest to the edge of the seat having more curves. A rocking chair collector described it as an army knuckle arm Windsor rocking chair with saddle joints where the legs meet the rockers.When we showed up at Mr. Oak Antiques and Refinishing to drop it off, she gently ran her hand down the arm of the rocker and said, "I like furniture that has a story. Sometimes people bring me something they just bought, and it's going to get its stories in the future." That told me she really loves furniture and what it represents that goes beyond the wood it's made of.

According to a rocking-chair collector who saw the picture I posted on Facebook in its former condition, Grandma's rocker is an Army knuckle arm Windsor rocking chair with saddle joints where the legs meet the rockers. I'll have to take their word for all of that. To me, it's Grandma's rocker.

About a week ago we picked up the restored rocker. Under all the paint it turned out to be oak. The remodeling project isn't done so it will be a few more weeks before it can rock gently on the new floor, gleaming in its new wood stain and acquiring more stories.

 


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A Year of Poems: January

My morning practice of reading poetry before I start the busier part of each day has resulted in quite a few thematic collections of poems. I collect them serendipitously and when I reach what feels like a decent number on a topic, I publish them here or over on Bike Style.

When a poem names a specific month—not just a season but the actual month in the Gregorian calendar full of dead Roman emperors and Roman gods—if I'm reading that poem in that actual month I get a little bump of happiness, or perhaps delight the way Ross Gay describes it in The Book of Delights.

So of course I started my collection of poems that directly name months, not knowing whether I would find one for each month or build a catalog big enough that each month would get its own list. Then I realized committing to a time-bound structure like this requires a different method: actual research. 

That doesn't mean I'll end up with a collection worth publishing every month. I don't yet know how much has been said about each month. It's too easy to take poetry about a holiday held in a particular month and count that as being about the month but it isn't; it's about the holiday. My criteria thus include truly being about that set of days and how they feel, primarily in the northern hemisphere since that's where I live.

It seems appropriate to be less than 100% certain about which way this is going to go. After all, this month is named for Janus, the Roman god with two faces who looked both backward and forward. The god's likeness was often carved above doorways, indicating that we can move either direction through a portal. 

For now I'm moving forward. My poetry posts began just over a year ago with my first collection of bike poems, and I'm listing all of those at the end so you can also travel back in time.

Not at all surprising that other people have also compiled lists of January poems, although they often include ones I would label "winter" because they don't actually name the month. Similarly, if a poem is named for the month or mentions it in passing but doesn't feel to me as if it's "about" the experience of living in or through this month I didn't include it.

I resisted the temptation to load it up with poems about making New Year's resolutions. I've had a variety of thoughts about making resolutions over the years, my primary one being, "Why wait for January 1 if it's worth doing at all?".

And now, on to the poetry. If you have a favorite January poem I've missed, please drop a link on the comments to share. 

"Runoff" by Sidney Burris

January’s drop-down menu
leaves everything to the imagination:

"Letter Written During a January Northeaster" by Anne Sexton

The snow has quietness in it; no songs,
no smells, no shouts nor traffic.
When I speak
my own voice shocks me.

"The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun;

"January" by Betty Adcock

Dusk and snow this hour
in argument have settled
nothing. Light persists,
and darkness

"In January" by Ted Kooser

Beyond the glass, the wintry city
creaks like an ancient wooden bridge.
A great wind rushes under all of us.
The bigger the window, the more it trembles.

"January" by John Updike

The days are short,
The sun a spark,
Hung thin between
The dark and dark.

"New Year's Day" by Kim Addonizio

Today I want   
to resolve nothing.

I only want to walk
a little longer in the cold

blessing of the rain,   
and lift my face to it.

"The Sixth of January" by David Budbill

I can’t say the sun is going down.
We haven’t seen the sun for two months.
Who cares?

"In the Second Week of the New Year" by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

It brings me real joy
to plant these seeds today
while outside the wind
and snow and cold
do their wintery work.

"To the New Year" by W.S. Merwin

here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are

Related reading: Poems on anything

Related reading: Transportation poems
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