Starting.

We are now seven years into what, as a child, I used to call The Future. To me, anything beyond the year 2000 meant flying cars and metal wands to heal wounds and food in the form of colored pellets. Seven years into the future. Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? Or maybe I’m just too much of a sci-fi fan. Imagine how much I loved Back to the Future. Man, was that a cool movie or what.

Seven years into the future, then, and I have many things to show for it. And the past year has now gone up in smoke. It went by so fast, obviously. I have been dreading writing this post as I was telling K the other day, because I don’t feel I had a particularly great year. I can sum it up in a few sentences, as I have discovered, but I feel it would rob all the significant things that happened, good or bad, of their significance. I need to rest on 2006 for a little while longer and mull it over. So rather than do a retrospective of 2006, I’ll follow K’s suggestion and make my list of resolutions for 2007. Sure, it’s already 3 days in, but it’s never too late to make resolutions you know you won’t keep anyway. Hmmm. In your face, Little Person In My Head. (Little Person has been bitching the last couple of days, because nothing was done around the house. I had decided to take a holiday. She’s now very upset because she is dousing me with lingering doubt and remorse over not having kept my resolutions and I keep telling her she can go to hell and suck my big fat….popsicle.) Okay, we need a title, here. Something not too pompous. Ah!

The 2007 List of Resolutions That Will Not Be Kept by Me (and probably a bunch of other people):

1. Take good care of myself. That means eating well (which I already do), getting some exercise (which…I totally already do…ahem.) and generally not being a couch potato. (Note to self: develop method for knitting in sleep or while running. Consider cost of hiring little monkey to do knitting.)
2. Do the dishes every evening (wait – when we bought this house, wasn’t there talk of a dishwasher?)
3. Read good books. (Brigitte, ball’s in your court. Hit me.)
4. Count fingers every day to make sure they’re all there. Wait – that doesn’t sound right. Ah! I meant count my blessings every day to make sure they’re all accounted for.

That’s it! Eureka moment. That’s what I want to do this year, is count my blessings. So little people do it. Well, I shouldn’t put it that way – I should specify that lately, I have been attracting people who like to complain about everything. Even good things. Good things are never quite perfect enough. There’s always that tiny something that takes the shine off anything. You wanted a red car? You saved up for years and bought the red car? You’re happy parading around in the shiny red car? Good. Focus on that. Not on the disappointment you are feeling because you could not get the $1500 mags to go with it, you know what I mean?

Throng of Readers, prepare for my onslaught of shameless, wide-slashing generalizations of what human beings are like. Okay, maybe not. I’ll upset people. So Throng of Readers, look around you. I’ll wait.

Where are you? In your home, in the ‘office’? At work? Internet café? Some coffee place with your laptop? What do you see? You see things that are on some shelf, on a table, in a bag. Clothes, cars, phones. Things that are material. You also see people’s faces, maybe. Some are happy, some aren’t. Some look miserable, but it’s just to attract attention. Others look happy, but their faces hide repressed sadness. Some just look blank.

Now look a little deeper, scratch right past the first couple of levels your eyes can adjust to, you may see decisions you’ve made, friends you have, smiles you’ve given and have received, things that were said in confidence, foreheads you’ve kissed, surprises that were planned, laughs shared, hands you’ve held, and promises you have kept. It’s that deeper look I want to be able to take as often as possible, just to remind myself that no, not everything is beautiful and pink and fuzzy. But things certainly are better when you look at them from a certain angle.

I wish all of you a happy, healthy, insightful and creative New Year, from the bottom of my heart.