Fresh Air = Fresh Perspective

One of my Resolutions for 2011 is to spend some time each day outside, no matter what. Lord knows I could use the dang exercise and fresh air, of course. But I see that I'm becoming more and more reclusive as I age, and I know now that if I don't pay the Earth a daily visit, I'll lose touch with Her altogether. Sounds like a good habit to get into, in any event.

So yesterday I layered myself up and walked a side street to the town's main thoroughfare and back again. Snow was coming down at the time -- big sparkly flakes like sequins. And between the sounds my boots made as I crunched along I could hear them fall....

I stopped to appreciate one of my favorite trees, an oak that keeps its leaves in winter. And I saw discarded pines at the curbside, some still sporting a thread or two of tinsel, and I made a point of thinking kind thoughts to them about how noble it was to have been a Christmas tree. (Normally I'd just stand there and tell them so personally, but for some reason yesterday I saw in my head the entire village looking out its windows for a second and catching me talking to myself in the snow....)

Then on my way home again I happened upon a fort that some child had dug in a drift, and I couldn't help but stop to appreciate it as it was like none of the winter creations that I'd ever managed to make as a kid. This structure looked like it'd been carved out of ice pack. It was dark and sturdy and as big as a child-sized cave. There were even blunt little icicles hanging inside like stalactites. And when I bent over to look at it all head-on, I realized that the whole thing tunneled through the drift to daylight, and when I saw that it did so, I immediately recognized my focus for the year:

The way may appear to be cold and dark at first, but the dangers are minimal. And there's a light eventually.

Hmmmm. I can live with that. :)
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Good Intentions

I dusted off my resolutions today. And my treadmill. (Correction: James's treadmill.) And although I longed to leap into my new exercise regimen with gusto, I took it slow and gave myself a ten-minute limit. I love how just ten minutes of moving warms a body up and gets everything going in a forward motion.

I'm a horrid overachiever when it comes to New Year's resolutions. I swear my midnight list has everything on it from losing five pounds to curing cancer, and in reality, I'm lucky if I can manage to scratch even half of one from the count by the end of the year. This year's list is no exception, and I can already almost sense the taste of failure in the dust kicked up by the treadmill.

But it's not bad to set big, unrealistic goals, is it? I'm sure every New Year's Eve at midnight biochemists everywhere are writing Find a Cure for Cancer and it has yet to happen. But all year long they're working hard to make progress, and every year's end shows signs of improvement. Eventually the time will come when they can cross it off and celebrate.

There's so much I want to do this year. So many changes I want to make! And I know I'll be lucky to meet even one of my goals. But if I only keep moving in a forward motion, any progress I'm able to make will look dang good at the end of the year.
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(P.S. I couldn't help but post a pic of my getting-rattier-by-the-day Skechers -- icons of last year's good intentions -- as the big old visual for this post. Everytime they're on my feet I can't help but see little killer whales out of the corner of my eye! Hm. Whales and resolutions of weight loss; I sense a connection.... ;->)