More than ever these days, keeping myself organized is a daily process. There’s this. That. The other. Dates. Bills. Receipts. A to-do list. A calendar (or two.) And much as I love a clean desk, truth is there’s well-begun but half-done projects here and there, waiting for more time and opportunity.
So there’s often a desktop shuffle. And we all know — things get lost in the shuffle. Important things.
What I need – have needed – will need – is a system. And oh-the systems I’ve tried. So many systems, I’ve lost count. In all honesty, I reinvent wheels all the time. Or forget about the latest wheel I reconfigured in the time elapsed between its creation and the next time I needed to use it.
Sometimes I’d get all the paper completely organized and feel ever so self-satisfied.
Only to later forget what-all I did with any of it.
Maybe one system just blends into another, each indistinct from the last. Maybe it’s an aspect of aging. Or maybe my brain is more full of big ideas and less focused on small details.
Enter my latest system: an action diary.
Not especially detailed, my action diary is a collection of notes – reminders of what I did, when I did it, who said what, and where I put anything I’m likely to forget about, but will need in the future.
When did I call the cable company? Where did I file those receipts?
Simply put: an action diary is a record of my actions. A log of my to-dos — done.
Going forward, it’s the first place I’ll look whenever I’ve lost hope of finding that piece of paper, reset password, or whatever else I’ve forgotten between then and now.
What will I do with it? What attitudes and expectations will I bring to it? What goals, dreams, or ambitions do I have for it?
Or, shall I simply live it?
Come what may.
Life’s complexities are often of my own making – or perhaps my own participation. It’s likely, life’s simplicities can be mine as well.
Here in this day, may I be mindful of simple living. The choice of simple living.
What does this simple living look like? How will I know when I’m living it?
Maybe it’s in the noticing and then the appreciation.
Appreciating the burst of black crows against a blue sky. The prayer of a pair of leaves roadside. The ability to hoist my own socks after a debilitating few weeks of back pain. The first few flakes of snow adrift on a breezy afternoon.
A year’s worth of accumulated hope.
So is simple living walking one step at a time on the day’s path? Expecting nothing but noting everything? Delighting in each minute’s arrival and feeling grateful as it departs? In the moment, of the moment, and most especially . . . author of the moment.
How grand to watch the sun travel across the sky, taking great pleasure in the simplicity of being here to see it.
How glorious to greet the first star as night falls, grateful for living today and wishing on that star for a simple tomorrow.
Pen on notebook. Notebook under keys. Medication next to the sink, next to the soap I use to wash my face every night. (If I remember. Which I do. Now that my medication is alongside.) Moisturizer at home atop the dresser from which I pull my clothes every morning. A list of daily important-to-mes tucked nearby as I ready my face to greet the day. Just this morning, I dropped a single tissue on the stair landing so I’d remember to add tissues to the grocery list.
Whatever it takes. However to manage in this life full of never-ending and persistent distractions.
More than ever before, our home is organized, room by room, item by item, so each possession has a home, a place where I’ll know exactly where to find it time and again without a hunt and seek. Take it out. Put it back in the same place, over and over and over. And I’ve weeded our things. Fewer possessions to manage. If it doesn’t meet a purpose – function, beauty, meaning, memory – and won’t in the future, out it goes. I store like with like. I’ll find what’s needed where it’s most often used. Clear surfaces calm me, freeing my thought paths to help me remember whatever it is I almost forgot.
These days, I find hope – and comfort too – in the familiar, the known, and routine.
So, I set reminders. Reminders to do what’s good for me: a water glass next to the fridge. Reminders to meet responsibilities: a timecard left on my computer. Reminders for function: glasses on my book, lunchbox in front of the door, masks in the car. I own many too many notebooks – an organizational problem I’m helpless to overcome. Still, I love to list. And list. And list. There’s remembering in the writing.
I’ve even texted myself on occasions when I absolutely must remember to do something and don’t entirely trust myself to remember to do it. What about you? String on your finger? List on the fridge? Timer on the stove? My husband used an elastic band on his wrist. What’s sensible for me, might not be at all practical for someone else. I think I feel most successful when I find my own solutions.
If I’m to have any hope of managing all that’s on my mind and in my heart, strategies are necessary. If I’m ever to keep myself whole in an increasingly fractured world, I’ll need to remember – somewhere way down deep inside me – just what being whole feels like.
At the top of a morning, I notice the energy of possibility. Hope, wide awake and willing, greets the day face-forward. Counting on roadside petals, life loves me and I love it right back. How fairy-taled the deep green velvet of a moss-covered path. How gladly sunlight dances with daisies and trumpets daylilies. How fun to chick-a-dee-dee-dee with chickadees and honk with geese flying over the lake. How gently the fog lifts as the day warms. How delicate a thread of web stretches from flower to flower to flower, a tell-tale trail of one spider’s travels. I marvel at the intricacy of a gravel road, two miles into my day. And returning, notice now how I feel right this very minute, tip-tapping on keys. Happy.
I welcome you to the comfort of my kitchen. I’m warming the oven – and myself – after a long, dark, cold January. I’m baking today. Seven cabinet doors flung wide from the gathering of ingredients and tools and bowls. Evidence I was here. Cookie dough spins in the mixer and the sun just arrived … at 6:58 … same time as last year on this day. (I checked.)
I smile to think of who I am this February compared to last. At 6:58 or any other time. And then I think, how nice it is to smile about such as that, about me as I am. Yes, February, I’ve added the right ingredients: plenty of rest, drinking my water, moving my body, reading lovely books, loving my people as best I can, and of course, hope.
Hope was a little harder to find last February. Maybe sometimes hope is tucked away in the back of the cabinet, behind the molasses, just waiting for me to pull it out, dust it off, and share it with others. Hope, like the cookies I’m baking today, is meant to be shared. And February, you with your earlier sunrises and later sunsets – give hope. Just when we need it most, I think.
So today I’ll be sharing cookies, February. And if you’d be so kind, please share some hope. In your month of love, remind me to love my neighbors, to offer warmth, to welcome … and accept … everyone.
Open my heart wide, February.
French Love Cakes
1 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup finely chopped, roasted pecans
Sifted powdered sugar (about 1/2 cup)
In large mixing bowl beat together butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt until fluffy. Stir in flour and pecans until combined. Shape into 1 1/4 inch balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in 325 ° oven 20 to 23 minutes until golden. Remove from sheet to cooling rack over parchment paper. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Makes about 30.
-adapted from Country Home Magazine, February 1999
Thirty-six hours at home. One hot shower and one warm bath on a extremely cold day. Twenty-eight tidy, white stitches cast on Nana’s knitting needles (with any luck, mittens-to-be for a pair of toddler hands.) Five hardy Red Star chickens in the coop out back. A cluster of six red tulips plucked from a grocery store bucket. Two pieces of homemade pizza for dinner. One rainbow shirt and a wish granted. Two days until the full Wolf moon. Eighteen additional minutes of daylight since the New Year. The hope of a 27 degree heat wave tomorrow.
Browse your bookshelves. Listen. Pull what speaks to you. Arrange in a pleasing pile. Word by word. Title by title. Rearrange until you discover you in a stack of books. A bit of inspiration. A trove of delight. Hope culled from the books you’ve loved and lived with. Read top to bottom – or bottom to top. Write on your heart.
a year of weeks
365 days of wonder
chasing slow
daring greatly
becoming
joyful
simply living well
My thanks for today’s poem and life inspiration to Erica Root, R.J. Palacio, Erin Loechner, Brene Brown, Michelle Obama, Ingrid Fetell Lee, and Julia Watkins.
one hopeful year 