New Year’s Day is the western world’s touchstone for resolution making. There’s plainly something about that 01/01 date that appeals to many of us, like a celestial reset button: Press here to change your life! But not for all of us, or at least not for all our lives.
For some people, like the Happiness guru Gretchen Rubin, September is the “other January.” It makes sense that resolutions dovetail nicely with the start of a new school year, like a new book-bag and school-photograph clothes. Families especially find September an appealing time to refine or resolve some new habits. The kids are entering a new grade, with new demands on previously acquired skills, so it’s a natural time for parents to adopt better, healthier skills themselves. More home-cooked meals, maybe. If the pandemic means you’re working from home all day, you might recapture commuting time for kitchen creativity.
Spring-cleaning your habits
Other people find their resolution energy turbo-charged in spring. Tax day is in the rear-view mirror, daylight hours are growing brighter and longer… Maybe it gives you enough time to plant a garden, even if it’s just a few patio pots of herbs and one flowery something for pretty. These sunnier days also prompt spring-cleaning of home and wardrobe. For me, with the sun illuminating dust, it’s easier to see and thus maintain the shiny-clean. Best of all, the habit will likely stick as summer fades into fall.
Of course, the turning-over some new leaves is seasonless. The best day to resolve to stop smoking is likely today (although The Old Farmer’s Almanac might quibble). The best day to stop doomscrolling at midnight is absolutely today. You don’t really want to wait for “the perfect moment” to turn away from a habit that harms you. Any day is a good day to start taking a 15-minute walk at lunchtime… A good day to choose 30 minutes of quiet music and perhaps a book right before bedtime.
February 1 is my new year’s day
If you’re wondering what arcane alignment of celestial or mundane events made me choose February 1st, I can assure you there was none. (It had to do with when I bought my first set of planning journals, since you ask.) Those planners made me pay attention to what I wanted to achieve, and helped me figure out how to get there. Three years in, I’m even more convinced it’s working well for me.
One of the biggest frog projects I forced myself to consume in 2020 was tackling the darkest room in the house. That north-facing room was Timothy’s office, and it was his sickroom for more than a year. It ended up crammed shoulder-high with boxes, bins, baskets and books: his, mine and my parents’. So much to catalog, sort, sift… so many decisions to make about what to keep, sell, give away. Have I mentioned I am terrible at making decisions about three-dimensional objects? Knick-knacks someone else loved are impossible for me to KonMarie. A sweet, if sad, memory sometimes outweighs joy.
Nonetheless, I set out my intention in my planner, writing at the top of each day’s task list the goal of reclaiming a mournful space.
Spring arrives a little early this year
Finally, after six months, two planning journals, and a modest number of purchases, it is now transformed. His favorite hot yellow paint is now a clear creamy-white, the old wood trim refreshed to spring-frog green. Even the closet shelves got a lick of paint, lightening the rows of archival-grade boxes holding travel ephemera and photography projects. And because we find closet doors fiddly and space-wasteful, the louvered bi-folds were replaced with a custom shower curtain. On it, a lush English meadow, the winding path leading to the writers’ retreat of Totleigh Barton.
New bookcases flank our old cosy and colorful easy-chair. The tops of the shelves are illuminated with festive strings of Edison bulbs; new celadon lampshades top my parents’ favorite ceramic lamps from the 1960s. The chair is in a little nest of books. To the left: Tim’s architecture books, Mom’s collection on American movies. On the right: Dad’s 250-odd cookbooks. Those cookbooks will be a springboard to a new spring “frog” project. (More about that as its start date, my father’s birthday in March, approaches.)
The last page of the last 2020 project-book is — conveniently — the last day of January, a Sunday at that. A fitting day to sage-smudge the New Library. I’ll whisper a quiet word or two, to free the last sad memories of illness, to consecrate (if that’s not too lofty a term) the space to learning and peace. Then, bracketed by books and a couple of cats, I’ll chart the 2021 paths of a pondful of resolutely adventurous frogs.