I absolutely love the opportunity to start over, reinvent and begin fresh again.
What makes a new beginning anyway? The ending of an arbitrary weird 12-month calendar? The blow out festivities of the Holidays? The coming of the cold and rain?
I am not entirely sure but what does seem always related to new beginnings is a pause, an absolute stopping, a cessation of everything
you were doing for the past year. And then, as the tasks, the busyness, the constant agenda of you lessens, a new feeling of spaciousness arises.
There is, suddenly, a distance between what you used to do and what you are not doing now. All the things you used to do are over there and you and everything you are not doing is standing here. And now, standing here, unencumbered and with nothing in particular to do, two distinct things begin happening.
Firstly, and this is just how it works for me, I get overwhelmed with how wonderful it is to just do nothing. The first 45 minutes of doing nothing, however, do feel a little strange but I was amazed at how fast I took to doing nothing. Of course, I have been training for this winter break since October because I had an Achilles surgery and it forced me to stop all manor of physical things – not just running, which I love but even walking, climbing stairs and till only recently, even painting. But this time my break even includes art making and almost all social media. (I know I am still blogging but I can’t give everything up!)
For days now I have been wondering if I was meant to be a “lay about” – an English term for “couch potato,” something my Father used to toss at me in my
youth as I laid in bed some days, till noon. I told him I was busy growing, which was true. (Once I hit 6’ 4” I stopped growing and sleeping in so much as well). I just am flat out amazed at how good and comfortable I can feel doing nothing much at all. It is scary how good it feels.
Secondly, the next thing that happens after the shock of doing nothing wears off is that maybe 3-5 days in, a question begins to quietly loom in the background of your idleness. “When will I start again?” And actually related to this and maybe more accurate, is “How will I start again?” What will beginning again look like?
The fact that you even have time to ask this question, that you are in a place to even ponder an answer gives this moment it’s potency. It is what is at the heart of all new starts, new beginnings. You can’t help hoping, wondering if things this time around will be different. Most likely they will be. They certainly will be more in tune with you and how you feel now because you are beginning now. The very question has invited change back into your life and I know, at least for me that means uncertainty, curiosity and a heightened state of creativity; a threesome that keeps me awake at night and pops me up a little earlier in the morning. What will I do now? What possibly can I make that will surprise even me? It is simply exciting.
I am not even sure there are more important questions to answer than these…it is why we are here and why, once more it is so imperative to
start again.
How and what are you going to do differently this time?
In anticipation, Nicholas
