A New Year list in 15 bits of rubble
including: what my dog taught me last year | advice from unlikely places | social media hot-take | the photo I'm clinging to | & plenty more besides...
It’s hard to escape the gravitational pull of New Year posts that hurtle through cyberspace every January, isn’t it? You both do and don’t really want them in your orbit, but nevertheless you have probably absorbed/scanned/batted away/deleted-without-reading a hundred now already, parsing them with increasing agility as you make a snap call on what is likely to be useful, and what is likely to drag you down (the best, it seems, manage to do both; only at New Year can you be inspired and depressed in such a short space of time).
Into this quantum meteorite shower then, I sling another handful of rubble at you (I know, I’m sorry. The ‘genre’, as we may as well call it now, simply has too much heft to ignore) but I hope its fragmentary, easy list form will bring some levity and perhaps inspiration to make your own, if you get that far.
What my dog taught me in 2023 that I'll be taking into 2024
It wouldn’t be untrue to say that most of what I’ve learnt in the 32 months of Juno’s life so far, has come from her. Our dogs are complete and holy unto themselves of course, but their presence is also an ongoing metaphor of discovery. One memory that sticks in my mind from our autumn travels, is encouraging Juno to swim with confidence in the aquamarine river canyons of Sierra de Guara. Neil and I would stand a few metres apart creating increasing distance with each go, and he would lower Juno gently into the water, so that she could swim to me at the shore. Within a couple of goes she wouldn’t just dash for the sand bank, but would seek out a float on the way, presumably recognising it was safe for her to go the long way round. The image that sticks with me from that time was the way she frantically paddled her legs in the air before reaching the water. In such matters as this, it is best to Get going before you’re ready she told me.
The first things I read and watched in 2024
I can freight anything with the burden of meaning and portent, and so I am strident when it comes to choosing what I let in my eyeline in the dawning moments of a new year. One of my intentions this year is to take care of my mind a little better. Because though this is an evergreen discipline for therapists, it is also easy to drop your vigilance. Before you know it you’re swimming in misery, bad influence(rs) and nurturing a pessimistic perspective on the world. With this in mind then, I made my first book Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad (which I devoured in two sittings over NY) and Fly Away Home (the link is to a cute review many years after release) as my matinee movie of choice on arrival home from a quick jaunt in the van to Northumberland. I’m trying to forget that one of the first things I actually saw on New Years morning was a dead baby seal washed onto the shore.
Reading goals as an ethic of practical care
Having reading goals is one way that I can take care of my mind. The principle is two fold. Firstly, I am improving the quality of what goes in (and therefore presumably what comes out). Secondly, I am squeezing out the space that the unhelpful stuff takes up. I am a huge fan of additive action over restriction. The latter just doesn’t work. Ever. Better instead to fill your time with better options. With this in mind, I am returning to a 52-book goal. My next read is Orbital by Samantha Harvey. I’m only one page in, but it’s already stunning. As I mentioned in my last post, I like a short book above all else, so this target should be possible if I stop faffing around with content that has a half life of 10 seconds (OK, it’s a little more than that but our attention probably isn’t).
A leading question for the year from a less likely source
Everything begins with generosity is an intention I am taking into 2024. Turning it into a question it looks more like this: how can I be more generous in this situation? The whole notion of generosity is something that sits in my shadow (I am scared of it, threatened by it, overwhelmed by giving and receiving it) and so it’s clearly something useful to hold in perpetuity of mind this year. The source? Rick Stanton, caver of Tham Luang cave rescue fame documented in the incredible Nat Geo film The Rescue. I’ve been returning to his words - that phrase - for months now. It wields a sharp spade, and is already digging a new neural pathway.
The first thing I woke up thinking in 2024
I need to pee. Followed by I can do this. I’m not being entirely facetious.
Aspirational recipe of the year
I received a professional-grade ice cream maker for Christmas having pined for one for years, and have already made (and shared - see generous) two batches. This year I am aspiring towards making an elderflower sorbet when the season is upon us. The elderflower is less the aspiration than the fact it will herald summer, so I am keeping this in my sights. Let us long for the fruit that comes after our wintering.
My first animal guide for 2024
To lead me into the year, I am working with Vulture as my animal guide. A bird associated with death of course, but perhaps more subtly with recycling, clearing away, composting, clearing-the-decks, making space for newness. All 4-5 vultures that are native to Europe are one of the success stories of rewilding and bird conservation in recent years. They are a keystone species that we are scared of and have forgotten to value as we attempt to do away with death in Western culture. In any case, they are in my heart, on my writing pile, and will soon be welcomed into the first Animal Movement Class of 2024. Come and Dance the Vulture online if you would like to explore this iconic bird with me.
Body part I'll most be attending to
My eyes have taken a rubbing this year, leaking all the way to midnight on the 31st, having seen too much in a figurative and literal sense. Be it from online therapy, classes and workshops, book writing (and narrating, which was the final rub) or giving too much stare-time to my devices, my eyes have been tired, dry, itchy and running throughout this whole year. Basically, they need better care. They’ve been showing me this for ages. To look after them better, prioritising their need to look away is intrinsically linked to taking better care of what sits behind them. Staring at the screen at anything is to employ a ‘traumatic gaze’ as we might say in the trade. We’re simply not built for a wide-eyed stare unless we’re terrified. By enacting this every day we keep ourselves strained in more ways than one. Blink. Blink again. Take a sideways look.
Social media hot-take
2024 will be the year of great disillusionment. People will drift away. People will leave with grand declarations. People will make exit strategies to untangle themselves from its bonds. People will dramatize and monetize their departures through endless How To Leave posts on other platforms. Eventually, each of us will face inner collapse as we try to keep up with the discordance of genocidal horror and mindless advertising thrown together in one swipe. Or maybe that’s all just me.
Personal development hot-take
2024 will be the year we stop trying so damn hard, and instead give ourselves over to a long process we might call Weathering.
Latest (rock-related) obsession I'll be nurturing
I have been in recent comms with the good people at the Geological Society of Estonia, and they have kindly send me some bits and pieces to help plan a trip I want to make to look at some big rocks. I first did some solo-travel around Estonia in 2012 and I’m itching to get back and explore their rocks in the Fifth Season. It’s unlikely I’ll make the Fifth Season this year as I’ll be launching a book here in the UK. But this is fitting if nothing else; last time I travelled out to Estonia to witness the Great Crane Migration I missed it by a couple of days. Only the stragglers remained with me. Next time, I’m not taking any chances. I’ll go early and wait.
Wildlife I hope to see this year
I would love to follow the path of the Lynx. But I’m not sure if I will get to where Lynx are, so there is only a vanishing chance (but let’s not shut down options too soon eh?) I would also like to snorkel over a Scottish kelp forest.
Items on my writing pile
Next week, my group Writing from the Inner Grounds begins again, so I am currently revising some bits and pieces for that, including some embodied writing exercises that better suit the new weekly structure this time around. I am also drafting my second piece of flash non-fiction, which has absolutely nothing to do with the first in time or space, but turns out to be linked through symbolism and a thread around ‘return’. That was a surprising discovery. Lastly, I am gearing up to write something for the New Scientist, which is probably my most exciting commission of all time. My leaky eye leaked extensively when the invitation landed.
Anti-capitalist baby step
This could be the step back from social media I mentioned above, it could be getting your books from libraries, sharing food, nurturing your allotment or just gold old fashioned flying and buying less (including into productivity culture itself). For me, I’ll be churning my own ice cream*. Because when I’m doing that I am not doing other things like propping up corporates. I am resisting diet culture (itself a product of capitalism). I am looking for seasonal ingredients. I am nurturing ‘churn time’ inside the compressor and inside of myself. I am partaking in liberal helpings of JOY.
*I might also do something more conventionally useful** like increase my volunteering hours. In his recent Reith lectures Ben Ansell talks about the catastrophic drop off in volunteering in the UK, and how this affects feelings of solidarity.
**In a further nod to item 4 above, Arnie Schwarzenegger says his everyday practice is to ask ‘How can I be useful today?’ - I like it, but please don’t ask me how I know it.
Photo from 2023 I'll be clinging to as if my life depended on it:
I hope you have enjoyed this alt-list of New Year bits and pieces. If any of the prompts/headers resonate I would love to hear your version in the comments. Perhaps you have your own hot-takes? Or a book to recommend? Or an unlikely inspiration? Or an anti-cap baby step to share? I would also love to see the photo you’ll be clinging on to for dear life.
Oh, I adored every single line of this, but the part you buried there at the very end about each adventure having three distinct parts - that almost summed up how I feel about reading it too (although I wasn't exactly planning for it), but the experience and the recollection? Nailed it. I think that line will happen to find it's way into my own bag of treasures. Thanks! 💜
Blissful Ruth! And hello, Juno 👋
I have a three year old lurcher, Monty. Whenever I'm feeling sad/overwhelmed/raging, I think "Be more Monty". It works. (He is the most laid back creature I've ever met. He honestly doesn't give a toss about anything. Except us ☺️)