Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?
Largely by attempting to understand the perspective of my baby son. Again with the baby!
But really, this was brought home by a visiting midwife in my postnatal checks who said that a newborn is experiencing hunger, thirst, temperature, touch, many sounds and many positions all at once in the same few days. So I began by talking to him, and agreeing that it was a strange strange world he’d found himself in. And later, it became a game of trying to understand what it’s like to never be bored because everything is new. And later again, to have to infer rules from first principles. Why can you chew on food, and on many brightly coloured plastic things (toys), but not most other things? How can you explain the “what you can’t chew on” rules succinctly.
Plus, for example, babies doesn’t know about nudity and clothing, they don’t know that your nose is shaped just like food but is not meant to be bitten, they don’t know not to touch faeces, they don’t recognise a difference between food and dirt.
So, it’s been rather easy to keep in mind that the world is a strange place, this year.
Let go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?
I was anticipating these things, but I can’t do any of the following now:
- propose a spontaneous late night wander with my husband, and execute it a minute later
- have a conversation with my husband in a normal tone of voice while we’re both occupying the same room
- sleep all night (I’ve slept through about ten nights since V was born)
- leave the house within two minutes of the idea occurring
It’s got to the point where it’s going to be strange to have some of that return.
Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?
Sticking to physical things, what I tend to make is food. The last food I made for pleasure rather than necessity was, I think, burnt butter biscuits for the picnic in memory of my grandmother. And I’m failing to execute a plan to make rum balls right now.
That said, “clear time for it”? This set of prompts seems to be rather in the “empower yourself” mold. I’m not making rum balls right now because I need downtime after deaths and illnesses in the last week, not because I’m failing to organise my life sufficiently well. This year, my life has organised itself around disasters and stressors. Making time for things was a recipe for disappointment in 2010.