The Next 360 Days

McMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA

Almost a week into the new year and I have not yet hashed out my new year’s resolutions. Well I guess setting goals in a timely manner will not be one of my new year’s resolutions... Truthfully, I’ve never set new year’s resolutions before. Well, there was one year that a friend asked me what my resolutions would be when I was halfway through a magazine article on backcountry fishing, so I said maybe I’d learn to filet a fish that year. I never did. But in general, I’ve sort of bucked at the idea of setting resolutions, put off by the typical trends towards losing weight and avoiding junk food (both things I should perhaps consider, but not the way I want to direct an entire year’s energy).

I do like the reflection that the new year offers- I think back on all that has happened in a single year. In the last twelve months, I met my newest nephew, with whom, of course, I fell madly in love. I knitted my first sweater, for my aforementioned new love. I survived a massive earthquake, my first earthquake ever, and then found myself in aftershocks in two other countries.I learned the value of facebook in finding one’s loved ones in a natural disaster. I recoiled from a broken heart. I fell in love with Vietnamese food, but less in love with their diminutive bikes. I lived vicariously through my sister’s first garden and reveled in her success. I built a straw bale house from start to finish. I got a real life history lesson on the reservation system in this country and felt my heart break a little more. I did a sweat lodge for the first time. I got my first ever violent bout of food poisoning, not from street food in a developing country, but in an American convenience store. I went to a Pow-Wow. I finally, after several years and dozens of visits, found something lovable about Denver. I took my niece on an adventure in the big city and marveled at how naturally this tiny person sauntered through the big wide world of skyscrapers and crowded streets. I said goodbye again and headed south. I lost a friend (temporarily misplaced, I hope). I mourned the loss of a home in Christchurch, that I hadn’t quite realized felt like home until I saw it in tatters. I worked in the pitch black and the cold and remembered how amazing the darkness is, in this my southernmost home, and then felt a little sad when the darkness disappeared with the arrival of summer, and it’s incessant sun and relentless pace. I took on my first every (mostly) desk job, and have thicker love handles and sciatica to show for it (perhaps not the year’s highlights).

Thinking back on a year like this makes me remember just all that has happened in a year that feels like it flew by. I’ll ponder this all again in a couple months on the occasion of my birthday. And I’ll wish that some things were different, and be glad that some experiences are over, miss the people and places that captured small bits of my heart, and think about how the coming year will be the same or different.

But never before have these reflective moments inspired me to set concrete goals for the coming year. This year, however, I thought I might try it out. I was inspired by a friend last year who had set a goal of visiting somewhere new each month, a bit of a challenge in a region where she has lived most her life. I thought perhaps setting some goals such as these that would be challenging and fun, but also enrich my existence and might bring focus to my often seemingly aimless life.

It’s not that I haven’t set goals before, or laid out plans, but it seems that each time I do, a different opportunity presents itself, or the school I thought I’d attend rejects my application, or the program I thought I’d never work for again calls with a job just when I’m getting desperate, or the person I was making plans with never comes back from dinner. So, you know, life happens. So the allure of making plans is a little lost on me. Oh it’s true, I’m starting off as a pretty non-linear human being without any clear sense of career aspirations, but the failure of plans to work out has left me more reluctant to make them in the first place.

In this, my first ever set of New Year’s resolutions, I am endeavoring to set realistic goals that are both flexible and fulfilling, that address various areas of my existence that I really do want to address. It might be more realistic to set one goal in this, my first go at the whole new year’s resolution thing, but afraid that one singular goal would become too lofty, I’ve instead made several, perhaps smaller goals, that will challenge me the whole year long, but are concrete and measurable. After setting goals in the past like, “maybe I’ll take up running again” or, “I should learn something new” that were vague and allowed no checking off, I have realized the importance of clearly measurable goals. After many seasons of my nomad life, I have learned that rigid plans reliably fail. Doing yoga every morning was a noble goal until I was living in a tent where the frequent rainstorms made my morning practice impractical.

As I mentioned, this plan of mine was largely inspired by the idea of Dixie’s plan of going somewhere new every month. It is the sort of goal that is clearly measurable, but also extremely open-ended, and without the potential for failure that an everyday sort of goal sets up (after all, if just one day goes by, I’ve technically failed….). So I’ve got a small list. (I won’t share the entire list here, as it is fairly personal, and I’m not so certain of my audience here). One of my potential favorites that I’ve set is to go for a hike every week. That’s 52 hikes in the course of the year. I love hiking, but don’t always make the time for it, or find myself inclined to lounge in beautiful places instead of adequately exploring them. I am perfectly content to read in the sunshine, or picnic in the shadow of tall trees, to meander aimlessly on sandy beaches, and to nap in the shade. It is a goal that I hope will serve both my physical needs to be more active, and feed my insatiable wanderlust in some small way. It is something that I can check off every week, something that I can do anywhere in the world, and totally open-ended. I am looking forward to all the places my legs will take me in the coming year.