Tag: New Year

What’s Your Spirit Bird?

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I sit at the kitchen table preparing to read the NY Times. I separate the front section from the rest of the paper, and then pause.

I get up, go to the fridge and grab the remains of yesterday’s leftovers.

I turn to the Opinion Pages, my first stop, and scan the titles. My eyes spot an essay by Margaret Renkl.  I’m a fan-boy of Margarets. I see that her piece is titled “Spring is Coming“…well that’s a bit aggressive on January 5th, no Margaret? 

I read on.

“There’s a New Year’s tradition among bird-watchers: The first bird you see on New Year’s Day is your theme bird for the year. Your spirit bird, the bird that sets the tone for your encounters with the world and with others, the bird that guides your heart and your imagination in the coming year. It’s hardly a serious ornithological exploration, but there are plenty of birders who will wake before dawn anyway, no matter how late they stayed up on New Year’s Eve. They will drive off to some wild place teeming with avian life, all to increase the sunrise odds of seeing a truly amazing first bird. Who wouldn’t love to be matched for a year to the spirit of the snowy owl? What a gift to be guided for 12 months by the soul of a Bohemian waxwing!”

I pause.

Yea, OK, it’s January 5th, it’s well beyond New Year’s Day but there’s no reason I can’t find my bird now. I need my spirit bird Now.

I stop nibbling on my sandwich. Get up. Step out the back door, watch, and listen.

Silence.

I wait a few moments longer, in my short sleeve t-shirt, in 38° F temperatures.

Nothing. 

Perhaps some encouragement. Come on Red! Where’s that Red Cardinal? There are four bird feeders in the backyard. All hang on their poles silently. No breeze. They don’t swing. They are Still.

Nothing.

I step back into the house, pull the sliding door closed, and finish up Margaret’s essay.

No Bird. Wonder what that means.

I reach for the remaining quarter of my sandwich, and look down…

Chicken Sandwich…

What a gift to be guided for 12 months by the soul of a Bohemian waxwing!

Photo: Ostdrossel

First Day Back

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First day back after 2 weeks off…Sunny side up and Easy, way over easy…

Photo: Slowdown Studio (via Swiss-miss)

‘New Year, New You’ B.S. (Hear! Hear!)

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And now for “27 ways to feel bad about yourself while the last piece of Christmas pudding you’ve ‘indulged’ in is still making its way through your intestinal tract…”

As the new year dawns, you’ll notice that without ANY space to breathe whatsoever, what was once a newsfeed saturated with sequins, pints and party platters becomes one bursting at the seams with resistance bands, Nutri Bullets and all manner of “New Year, New You” rhetoric. If that works for you, great. If it doesn’t, keep on reading…

If you find all of this relentless (and, at times, negative) then join the club. I’ve decided I’m over it. I’ve clicked the “unsubscribe” button and it’s incredibly liberating.”New Year, New You” regimes are framed in such a way that they seem motivating, uplifting and encouraging. The reality is they’re designed to sell gym members and juice cleanses at a time when they’re most marketable and we’re most vulnerable. The sheer volume and velocity of this kind of content coming at us from every angle — while we’re still polishing off the last of the mince pies — can make us feel as though we’ve already failed within the first few minutes of the new year.Add to the mix, the pressure of New Year’s resolutions — which suggest that regardless of our current situation, we have much to improve upon; that we need to be better. We’re encouraged to set out a new set of goals, towards which to move to in the hopes of finding what we all want: happiness. We’ve barely finished the last verse of Auld Lang Syne and already, we’re exhausted, defeated and riddled with festive guilt.But here’s a thought: instead of subscribing to what’s become a very tired narrative, this year, let January be yours. (Read Caroline Foran’s 6 tips for moving forward here.)

So, if you insist on resolving to do something, do this: go easy on yourself, be your own benchmark for success. And think about the kind of lifestyle you want to live. Happy New Year.

~ Caroline Foran, from “6 reasons I no longer subscribe to ‘New Year, New You’ BS” (Mashable, January 1, 2019). Caroline Foran is a journalist and a best-selling author of “Owning It: Your Bullshit Free Guide to Living With Anxiety” and “The Confidence Kit: Your Bullsh*t-Free Guide to Owning Your Fear“.

Happy New Year!

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Take a breath…

Don’t swallow the sun
The moon isn’t bright enough…

I promise I’ll be a better person this time next year.

If you’re reading this…
Congratulations, you’re alive.
If that’s not something to smile about, then I don’t know what is.

― Chad Sugg, from “Swallow the Sun” in Monsters Under Your Head

Notes:

Resolutions. Day 1.

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Today I want
to resolve nothing.

I only want to walk
a little longer in the cold…

– Kim Addonizio, from “New Year’s Day” in Tell Me

Notes:

  • Inspired by Lucille Clifton, “I am running into a new year” (via Read a Little Poetry): i am running into a new year / and the old years blow back / like a wind / that i catch in my hair / like strong fingers like / all my old promises and / it will be hard to let go / of what i said to myself / about myself…
  • Poem Source – Memory’s Landscape.
  • Photo: Frozen Lake Tremblant in the Laurentides region of Quebec. Photo by Timothy A. Clary, Agence France, wsj.com December 24, 2017)