Getting Ready for 2014: On Going Through My Books

Start the clock! Release the kraken! Let the hockey players sharpen their blades, let the audience stir restlessly and go one last time for popcorn and sodas and beer, glorious golden beer that tints the ice with its microbrewed haze.

Because there is a haze tonight, that’s for sure, folks. Tonight Seattle’s surrendered to the supernatural forces that have been creeping up like uninvited shoggoths in recent years. The world’s gone weird and wacky, and why not krakens, why not tentacles spilling out from the Space Needle, infesting the sky? It’s Seattle, after all; it’s raining so it’s not like they block out the sun.

Who’d have dreamed that magic and hockey would mix this way, a mash-up made of bloody sticks and smashed spell bottles? Seattle’s wizards have come out of hiding for this game, emerged from their lairs in Greenlake and Mercer Island, driven their Teslas over to park in interdimensional folds where they won’t get scratched like normal cars.

Only an hour’s worth of game, and then the magic runs out, deflates like a sodden pumpkin, milked for all that tentacle and terror juice. Will it be enough to keep Seattle entertained for another evening, keep it from imploding like Scherezade in reverse into ennui and coffee beans? Cities don’t resort to supernatural hockey games until they’re really in extremis and no one is really sure what this one will – or even can — achieve, given a world of murder hornets and sapient bananas and well, you remember the last few months as well as I do, particularly what happened to the butterflies.

The clock’s ticking. The skaters are moving back and forth over the ice, and things are stirring in the depths underneath it, things that will fuck a Zamboni up and shred ice like tissue paper. That’s how close the danger is to us all. That’s how dire things are.

Let’s stop now, before another spray of ice goes up, before another player gets a bloody nose and melts the ice with that, so things can crawl through from another dimension. It’s not too late. Where’s the entrance? Where’s the exit? Why does this ice hold me so fast?

If I were truly organized, this would have appeared on New Year’s Day, but I had a very nice weekend instead. Now it’s Monday, and I’ve had my coffee and homemade yogurt and done some stuff. I’m feeling good about the year and have made the usual sorts of resolutions. Things that I’m trying in 2016:

More productive. Daily writing, no matter what the circumstances, shooting for 3k, but taking 1k as the absolute minimum. Getting the novel done, done, done, and a slew of other stories and projects, all stuff I’m looking forward to, but which must be banged out and then (ugh) revised. Daily free-writes to get warmed up and help me listen to my unconscious. Doing some of the daily little practices that end up accumulating, like practicing my Spanish on Duolingo.

More organized. Sitting down in the morning to take ten minutes to sort out my day and write the three most important things to get accomplished. Tracking things better. Having a household system where things have their designated place and get put there, and eliminating the clutter clusters, the places where stuff gets dumped and remains. The new house helps with not just the act of having to purge and sort that moving involved, but in having more spaces to put things.

More mindful. That same morning moment helps me figure out my day and live it more purposefully, less prey to random disorientation and derailing. Keeping a daybook/journal where I jot down ten things about the day, as well as a short list of what I got done, and the more important occurrences like visitors, trips, etc. Giving my poet-side time to sit and think at times.

More healthy. With the move, I’m walking more, and with the Fitbit, I could be tracking that and making sure I hit at least 5 miles a day, but hoping to be closer to an average of ten by the end of the year. Fewer eat-ALL-the-sweets moments and more fruits/veggies. Focusing on positivity and trimming negative crap out of my life where I can. Celebrating things that should be celebrated and practicing gratitude for being alive in such a nifty world, under what are pretty darn good circumstances.

I thought about trying to map everything out in Habitica but in the end I’ve just got a journal page with it all listed, plus I’m trying to build in habits that let me audit how I’m doing.

Part of mindfulness is the occasional moment where I remind myself that I have managed to do okay so far, and that despite feeling like a hapless mess half the time internally, I put on a reasonable facsimile of a responsible adult with an actual career and stuff. That’s kinda key too. While my inner teenager does give me a lot of pleasure, she’s also pretty insecure. To me, taking care of all those internal personae seems crucial, and it’s that part of me that’s actually achieved a semblance of adulthood.

Currently working on a couple of collaborations and a story whose title makes me laugh every time, but actually seems to have some social commentary at its heart.

Happy 2016, everyone! Here’s to health and happiness, to an overall increase in human empathy and a decrease in insecurity and meanness. Here’s to living life in a way that’s meaningful, rather than treading water and waiting for things to occur. Here’s to wonderful words and songs sung together, full voiced and beautiful, even with the occasional disharmony to make the rest sound all the better.