10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1……Happy New Year!
The aimless days of the final month of summer breaks are blissfully unorganized after an entire year of meticulous schedule keeping: for the full arc of the sun, nearly all our hours are assigned most days of the week. August has traditionally been a respite from the shackled calendar, a month to throw the itinerary to the wind and just let these days take us like a boat adrift. While charming in theory, it quickly falls prey to children pacing the four corners of the house, bickering with brothers, and not to be outdone by whiny I’m bored! drawls. All three boys will be in school this week, and I feel a collective happy solace from my crew that our beloved ad-lib summer living will return to the typically anchored chaos; we thrive in this place.
Since the day I entered kindergarten in an ivory & brown flowered little number my grandmother whipped up on her 1970 console Singer, I’ve been fluent on the academic calendar. Freshly trimmed hair, shiny new kicks, stiff jeans, and bright, colorful overflowing bags of school supplies that signify the start of something new has been with me for multiple decades. After the college years, I taught first grade, continuing to buy perfectly rectangular boxes of Crayolas, tissues and Fiskars on steamy August days. Inhaling the freshly-axed scent of those woody sharpened pencils, dotted with tiny pink erasers, is the promise of perfection before the sullied evidence of mandatory-for-mastery errors. My brain invariably processes autumn, winter, spring, summer as the true cyclical order, and a singular year is usually represented by two sets of numerals: 2013-14. And long before fireworks and the celebratory ball drop in Times Square, I giddily unleash my New Year’s resolutions on the first day of school.
With conviction:
I will go to bed before ten eleven o’clock, achieving eight seven hours of restorative beauty sleep.
I will voraciously get through all the reading material stacked near my nightstand.
I will limit myself to one (very large) cup of coffee every morning.
I will reduce my Inbox emails to a single double digit number.
I will find my feet hitting pavement, my body in water, and weights in my hands on more days than not. In doing so, my endorphins will kick in, pop like champagne bubbles, therefore maintaing a downright effervescent state of being.
I will unfurl that yoga mat that was eagerly purchased for January’s New Year’s resolutions, but has had a better relationship with my dining room wall than with me. Note: Maybe I should take it out for coffee before we get reacquainted.
I will try to learn to meditate (again), but this time (try) not berate myself for writing the grocery list in my head.
I will compile thoughtful and complete grocery lists (possibly during aforementioned mediation practice) that encompass a week’s worth of nutrious feasts for my ravenous family, putting behind me the Supermarket Sweep contestant mentality that throwing armloads of the most expensive foods in record time will yield magazine worthy meals. Note: Pick up more free suckers from the bank.
My closets will only contain pertinent content, my basement will feel cavernous with cathartic purging, and my pantry’s dry goods will not have passed expiration. And all the labels will be front facing.
I will laugh, share, commiserate, reconnect with dear friends over good drinks and good food once a week month. Related: I will drink more wine. Related, part II: I will do with same with my husband. Sitter up!
I will eat more kale.
I will eat less bacon.
I will call my parents more often.
I will be kinder and more forgiving to myself.
To be expected, my noble goals will eventually fade around the time the first flakes fall, but my chance at redemption will be just around the holiday corner as we all sing Auld Lang Syne together. For today, with a bouquet of pencils on my dining room table and golden leaves starting to collect on emerald grass, I feel tomorrow is the start of something good. Go forth into the world and bring me your sullied erasers in June.
This post was exclusively written for Light Inspired, an online photography forum.
Beautifully Ordinary is the trademark of Jen Lucas Photography, LLC.
