Day One

I had lunch with my parents recently, and we were on the subject of holiday celebrations. My dad was sharing his childhood experiences of New Year's, reminiscing about my grandfather's superstitions around this time of year. Apparently he used to believe that whatever you do during the first twelve days of the year is indicative of how you will spend the next twelve months. I'm a sucker for a soothsayer, but I am also a skeptic. So, if I can manage it, I am going to post about my day for the next twelve days, then look back during 2009 and see if my grandfather's belief rings true for me as well.

So here goes...

I woke up today to the sounds of the cats being fed, but I stayed in bed a little while until Moose came to investigate the matter of my whereabouts after his morning meal. After receiving a few nosy kisses, I stumbled out of bed into the chilly living room and got my bearings as Zack started a fire. We agreed over our second bottle of wine last night that we would start 2009 with a yoga session, so we warmed ourselves up with some stretching. It started as a bit of a shaky practice since we were both a little cold and cranky, but we both ended up learning something new in the end. For me, it was a bit of a lesson in letting go of the ego as a teacher... Zack was working through some of his own stuff on the mat, and I was trying to get involved and take it personally. At least I caught myself and practiced letting go, which became the theme of the practice for both of us in the end.

Once yoga was over, Zack and I shared some coffee and I did my big card reading for the year in front of the fire, with Moose weaving in and out of the scene. It looks like the next year is going to be pretty great: I'll be doing lots of work with balance, energy, and just plain old enjoying life. I think I'm due for one of those! After yoga and reading the cards, Zack and I were shocked to realize that it was almost 11:30! He moseyed into the kitchen to make a special breakfast for us: cheese omelets, half a bagel, mashed potato patties, and baconbaconbacon. Mmm mmm. Enough said.

We digested our brunch and hung around, with Zack glued to WoW while I cleaned up a little bit more of the holiday cheer lying around the house. When I got sick of cleaning, I sat down and started on Discipline and Punish. Yes, for a New Year's post, this has been devoid so far of a "resolution" per se. Well, here it is: I am going to read two books a month. For some, this may seem like a literature drought, but for me this will be a deluge. I have certainly read a few books in total over the last year, but I decided (also during the second bottle last night!) that I would like to build my cache of social capital and expand my horizons by filling in some of the blanks left by my slacking at Simon's Rock. So I asked my literary sweetie to make a stack of twelve books from our library to satisfy this goal. This morning I went through the list and picked twelve books from my yoga library to pair with Zack's suggestions, and now I have my work cut out for me.

Along with Discipline and Punish, I'll be reading Zen and the Art of Anything by Hal French this month. I chose this book for January because I distinctly remember sitting at my friend Megan's house on January 1st, 2002 (?), writing a promise to myself in one of my many attempted journals that I would read the book and write in the journal every day. Yep. So my expectations of myself are a little more open-ended this year. I'll read the book in a month, but write about it? We'll see if I have the energy to do that after this colossal post.

So let's see... after my first section of Foucault, Zack and I strapped our boots on and packed a snack for a walk in Guillemot Cove park down the street from us. The walk was exactly what I needed after being pretty cooped up over the last few weeks with snow, work, and laziness. We walked down the hill with the intention of eating cheese and crackers by the water, but the usually flooded trail to the beach was even more flooded than usual. So we hiked over to the maple loop and ate under a particularly fuzzy cedar tree. We huffed back up the big hill and trudged back to our cottage in the misty afternoon. It's nice that the sun is not going down at 4:15 anymore.

After we peeled our boots off and thawed out a little bit, we started preparing our gringo feast of Mini Chile Rellenos, Mexican Rice, and refried beans (no link necessary, they came from a can). YUM. Nothing could quite top our extravagant New Year's Eve feast of dungeness crab cakes preceeded by bacon-topped scallops, but it definitely stood up to following that tough act. So, after doing the gazillion dishes that needed to be done after such a day of gastronomic delight, I am sitting here typing what has turned into a very long entry. I guess that makes up for the last six months, right? ;) Do I dare say... more tomorrow?