It seems like December 31 is the year’s most contemplative day, don’t you think?
The bug hits me, I’ll admit. I’ve spent the past few days thinking about the year, the pace of which felt a little like this. Even as the light dims this late afternoon (snow is falling!), I’m still hoping to have time for Susannah Conway’s year-end notebook. It’s pretty involved and I don’t seem to ever finish it, but I have decided on a word of the year for the last couple of years (2012: fresh, 2013: bold) and going through the notebook has helped add some clarity and direction to the upcoming months. My chosen words of the year have been a little bit prophetic. 2014, in particular, feels full of possibility and challenges and changes to come.
WordPress informed me this morning that I posted 41 times in 2013 (ha! 42 now, suckas!). Another aspect of my year-end musings is always thinking about this blog. As usual, there were a few announcements this week by big-time bloggers that they have decided to stop posting. And I get that impulse. For me, I start to feel sheepish after a while. I realize I haven’t written much I’ve been really proud of for quite some time. But still, this space is my space, even if it’s not looking quite like me in the past few weeks.
I really identified with this Frank Chimero blog post. Having your own digital space is a certain kind of homesteading. He writes, “In a way, building your own house is the ultimate project for a creative person: you’re making a home for what you think is important, done in the way you think is best.”
I love that, even when I’m not doing much writing, my blog is so often in the back of my mind. I couldn’t agree more with Anne Lamott, who writes in Bird by Bird, “One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around.”
So here’s to looking closely at life this year. Here’s to building your own house. To choosing just the right word. To things to come.
Happy New Year’s, y’all!
(Anne Lamott quote from here, Frank Chimero blog post found via one of my favorite Twitter feeds, @austinkleon. Montana photo by me a few years ago.)
I like writing, photography, reading, music, design, typography, paper products, days in the seventies and sparkly snow, Spanish wine and cans of PBR. I spent a year in Córdoba, Spain, working as a 
