The major inspiration for this came from the instagram user @blakeoftoday, whom I discovered only a few weeks ago and who posts video recaps of "this week in fatherhood" and gives a beautifully composed synopsis of some of the highs (or lows) of his week. It is weirdly compelling, partly, I suspect, because he's invested in nice sound equipment and has a good voice for voiceovers, but also because he is insightful. He's reflecting each week on small moments of joy or growth or struggle that make up the mundane existence of everyday and which we so seldom spend time considering while trudging through our own daily routines. I wanted to set aside time for myself to reflect. To think each week about what has happened, how time has moved forward, ways that I feel I am changing or stagnating. Anything, really. So we'll see how this goes, I guess.
This week, something I've been thinking a lot about is setting goals and intentions. Clearly I'm not alone in this. I think probably more people than not have at least some idea of habits or routines they decide they want to alter and use the new year as a catalyst for starting fresh. That being said, one of my favorite takes on New Year's Resolutions this year was a video of a man explaining that for most of history the "year" started in the spring, and that the gregorian calendar we use moved it to January as part of a way for the church to control people (I've forgotten the specific reasoning there, but honestly the guy who made the video readily admitted that he had heard this and hadn't bothered fact-checking it because regardless of whether it IS true, it feels true and that it enough for him. I feel the same way). In nature, winter is a time of hibernation. Animals are supposed to slow down, sleep more, conserve energy. Really, just survive. Yet the holiday season pushes us to produce, consume, celebrate, socialize! More, faster, better, happier! Then immediately, with the changing of the year, we force ourselves to try to make sweeping lifestyle changes. Become new people! It makes more natural sense to do this in the spring, in the time of new growth.
And yet. I like the demarcation of the new year as a starting place. I like the introspection of one year coming to a close and a new year being full of possibility. Of course this could happen at any time of year! But culturally, our new year starts on January first. So I still make goals. Though I usually wait until January first to even start thinking about my goals for the year, and then a few weeks in (when most folks have abandoned their resolutions) I finalize a list for myself.
Yesterday I stumbled upon the account of a hand-dyed yarn company. The yarn was so beautiful! It made me want to buy yarn! And then I noticed that the account had all these photos of beautiful yarns displayed, and very few photos of anything knit out of these yarns. Which, granted, is probably not their goal as a business, but it made me stop and think. I've often walked into a yarn store and just adored looking at all of the beautiful options available for purchase. In college I spent unknowable amounts of money on yarn (if I had to guess, probably at least a thousand dollars over the four years) that I bought without real plans of what I'd use it for; I just saw lovely yarn and wanted to own it.
The same is true when I walk into fabric stores. Over the past couple years I've started exploring quilting as a creative endeavor and while I really like it and plan to continue, I've already accumulated an amount of fabric that it would take me years to make quilts out of. I actually prefer the aesthetic of quilts made with solid color fabrics, but when I walk into a fabric store I adore looking at all of the cute and beautiful and charming and clever prints and I want to buy them alllllll! (I *don't* buy them all, but I definitely still buy more than I have a real plan for.) I also get this feeling in bookstores; despite owning over one hundred books that I haven't even read yet, if I walk into a bookstore I will almost certainly walk out with at least one new book. I love walking into bookstores even on the rare occasions when I don't buy a new book- even just the feeling of walking into one is thrilling.
As I thought about all of this, I realized that part of the allure in all these stores that sell the individual pieces of my hobbies is the potential. Definitely part of what I love is the doing, the making, the process of creating something or the escape and journey of reading something. But there is a different, very real and separate, joy to walking into a place that holds all the potential for that enjoyment. Walking into a yarn/fabric/book store is stepping into a realm of possibility where there aren't any obligations. It's pure opportunity.
And that's how I feel about the new year. There's magic in the possibility. A new year is not yet marred by any goals that didn't get accomplished in the year before; it's unadulterated potential for myself and the world around me.
I've often wished I could own a bookstore. Or a bakery. Or any of these businesses that capture the feeling of bliss I get when walking into one. But then I remember that owning a business is a whole ordeal and not one that I'm particularly interested in. So, at least for now, I will save my excitement for stepping into the many businesses that I patronize to support my hobbies. And for the commencement of each new year, even if the date is arbitrary and misaligned with the natural seasonal time for new growth.
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