In looking for something to vaguely represent the present mess of my office, as I try to organize my life in the new year, I came across this photo of irregularly shaped stones, so cleverly balanced. (I'm not sure why it resonated. Maybe taking odd pieces that really don't go together and making them into something interesting and balanced.) I didn't know they were called "cairns" and were often used by hikers to mark trails/paths. I only knew the name as representing burial sites in ancient times. I had, however, just finished a book that I'll tell you about shortly. It told the story of a woman who gave up her son during the Depression, someplace in rural Colorado. Every year she would return to the spot where she had left her son. There she began forming a circle of stones, where she would add a new stone each year, hoping somehow her son might return. Finally, one year she finds that someone has set a larger stone in the center of her circle, and beneath it is a note. You'll have to read/listen to the book to find out what happened.
And yes, I am one of those people who does make resolutions---some of the same ones every year that everyone makes about improving my diet or exercise regime, but in the last year I set out to do several things that I now want to improve upon in the coming year. I wanted to learn how to do an audiobook, and I'm now working on #3, and I do want to finish recording all of my books. What began as a daunting project, actually became fun. Then, I wanted to learn how to do ads for my books, starting with Facebook, supposedly the more profitable. I did my first ones at the end of last year...and I want to learn how to do those better! By the way: I didn't lose that 10# from the holidays of 2023 and now I have the 2024 holiday weight to contend with!
But for this year I want to learn how to pull all of my work together---how to determine the cost-effectiveness of my efforts. I started by buying myself a new 4 drawer filing cabinet...and yes, my family did remind me that everyone was now going paperless...I pulled receipts and memos of expenses and entered everything into a nice 12-column accounting tablet. (I did not want to spend the time again trying to learn Excel.) Now I'm moving on to all those analytic reports I get every month on the website and social media info. But enough about all this. I know what I said a while back, that I didn't like puzzles, but actually, I see all this info as one big puzzle! And it's kind of fun to organize. And my office is now a little less messy.
Something else I wanted to add to my life this year was something I hadn't done for a while: a daily reflection. And it just so happened that an email I received had several recommendations. I chose Tolstoy, having no idea he had ever written anything like this:
Tolstoy, Leo - A Calendar of Wisdom, translated by Peter Sekerin (1997). Originally written in the late 1800s and published early in the 1900s, but banned after the Russian Revolution. There is something for each day of the year, with quotes from many spiritual, political, and literary sources.
My other recommendations by authors new to me:
Read, Shelley - Go As a River (2023) As mentioned above, this is the story of a woman raised on a peach tree farm in Colorado during the Depression, who sets herself the daunting task of relocating that farm when plans for a dam threaten to swallow it. It is a multi-layered story of family, prejudice, endurance and perseverance.
See, Lisa - Lady Tan's Circle of Women (2023) A fascinating and entertaining historical look at the role of women in 15th century China. It specifically focuses on the life of women physicians and midwives, and the elitism of one's class.
Enjoy life with or without those New Year resolutions!
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