Starting on a blank page

A new year, a new diary, a new blank page. Although the beginning of the year is an easy marker for a new beginning, for starting something new, it does put a lot of pressure on you. As if you need to wake up on 1 January and suddenly have life figured out, have a year planned out in front of you, have a newly printed list of goals on your fridge. This year will also be the first since 2007 that I haven’t been working towards a degree. It feels weird, but also liberating – it gives me time to work on new projects or projects I have been putting off. So, after a short vacation, it’s time to get out the new diary and start to fill it with whatever the year ahead may hold.

I hope 2015 will be a wonderful year, not only for those I know, but for all those around me. And I hope that for everyone at least one dream will come true.

Mont Fleur, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Photo by Carin Marais

The Hope of 2014

The coming of a new year somehow seems to lessen the struggles of the past year somewhat. Though hardly wiping the slate entirely clean, it is rather a time in which one feels renewed to start a new year having lived much and learned much. It starts when Christmas comes. Everyone seems to slow down and start thinking about what they have – or have not – achieved in the past year. Hopes for the new year pulls harder at the heart every day from then. The New Year is in sight! A new beginning. A few days in which you again feel that anything and everything is possible.

A Blank Slate (of Sorts)

In my case, I get a new diary (a blank slate, if you want), a new notebook and new calendar. Today, when I write this, the diary and calendar is no longer blank. Birthdays and appointments are already filling the blocks and pages – a reminder that time will not stand still. Yet, I also take this time to look back at my life and not just the year. I think of loved ones lost and of new friends found. The past year put our whole family through its paces will illnesses and injuries (I would rather not spend a month on crutches again, for one). It was a year which flitted by far too quickly. But it was a full year.

Hope Renewed

It was also a year in which friends got married, or got pregnant, or had children. Children grew up, made mistakes and didn’t want to listen to caution. It was the year in which I was suddenly one of the “elders” the “kids” didn’t want to listen to. But it was also the year in which friendships deepened, hope and faith was found or renewed, and hurts got healed. We’re all left with scars – some faded, some fresh – but I hope that, this year, the hope with which we start 2014 will not extinguish before the end of the month. May it be renewed time and again so that, when we close the diary on 31 December, it is a book we want to keep forever instead of throwing it away or hiding it at the bottom of a dusty drawer.

 Carpe Diem! Make your lives extraordinary!

Braving a New Year (With music and much coffee)

Welcome to the first post for 2013! As always, the festive season has simply flown by and the New Year is well under way. Those first few days of the year are always a kind of “limbo” anyway – barely anyone is at the office, you’re still eating Christmas cookies and nearly all the dates you type or write down is wrong.

"Love and Coffee" by Luca Baroncini

After 2012 was such a rollercoaster of a year – with most of the downs being things I would never have guessed at to happen – I have decided not to put to paper a grand plan for the year. Indeed, Jon Acuff’s approach to resolutions for the year sounds a lot better way to approach the next twelve months.

I will say about the blog posts I have planned so far that there are a few surprises, more “other stuff” and musings. I’ll still post twice a week – perhaps more during some weeks. But, before I start with unnecessary ramblings, I would rather say  - hope you enjoyed Josh Groban’s new single! May your year be filled with many blessings, great reads, awesome music and much coffee!

For Auld Lang Syne… Happy 2012!

The last night of the year is always a strange one. All the hopes for the New Year seem to hang in the air. Lists are made up with wishes for the New Year, much like adult Santa letters starting with “I want...” Many (most?) parties have too much alcohol involved, leaving everyone sloshed by midnight. This I have never understood – I do not want to start a new year, to turn a new leaf either drunk, praising the porcelain god or with a hangover.

It may just be because I don’t care much for alcohol. My ‘cheese and wine’ supper (traditional in our house) became a ‘cheese and coffee’ affair. Why? Because, while I brought some lovely cheeses, those I only splurge on at this time of the year, I completely forgot about the wine part. (Yes, for me that is easy to do.) But I did have a small bottle sparkling wine to toast the New Year with. As you can probably gather, I had a one-person party.

Now, before you go and pity me; it was completely by choice. Not only did I want to be home to keep an eye on my pets if neighbours decide to shoot crackers, but also because I wanted a quiet evening thinking the year over. And sometimes it’s better to chastise yourself when you’re alone. A Gollum-like conversation coming from one person can freak people out. (Of course, I never speak to myself, I speak to the cat.)

I am not sure if he really cares about my resolutions for the New Year, but maybe he just made the resolution to “sit and/or play on my slave’s papers more often”. This is because I will definitely have more papers, books and those cat toys I call pencils around. You see, the one big thing I did chastise myself for was not finishing things. The second was for letting small things get in the way of big things.

As to not finishing things – I have a whole file full of half-started or half-finished stories. But, even worse, I did not do nearly as much to my studies as I had wanted. Somewhere along the way I got sidetracked. I ended up wasting far too much time and letting the year slip by without being able to catch up again.

So, I have made some resolutions for the New Year, but this time I will make the goals a lot clearer. At the top of my list of ‘bookish things’ is to finish my degree this year. There, I have said it. It is now carved in Internet-stone. I have given myself the task of finishing the written piece by the end of the year.

My writing goals for the year are to work on my sketch writing/ flash writing. I am not going to try and write a novel. I will use the time I have at hand to do as much as I can and I will not let time get sucked into the bottomless pit of the internet or watching ‘whatever is on TV’. I will watch my few programs (about 3 for the whole week) and the news and that’s it. I will keep movies and DVD marathons for Friday movie night (and not every night...).

I will also write a review for every book I read – and if I do not like a book, I will put it down and not force myself to finish it! This won’t be a scholarly review, mind you; it will mostly be a ‘this is what I thought’ review, even if it is only one paragraph.

Added to that, I want to spend more time just being silent. I want to sit on the stoep and drinking a cup of tea when I come from work and unwind for a moment. I don’t want to be burned out by March already!

To everyone, I wish you a wonderful and blessed 2012!

O, and keep your eye on this blog for some big news in the next post!

Image by The Graphics Fairy