Resolution Row

12 days into 2012 and I've finally amassed a few goals for the coming year...

1. I know this might seem extreme, but I am not going to buy one single book this year. I've spent years supporting my local used bookstores so mightily that I could now open my own. Scores of unread novels beckon from the shelves: Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy, Danzy Senna's Caucasia, a couple of epic Isabel Allende's, not to mention the anthologies and story collections, and even a few candidates for a re-read (after all, isn't that why I've hoarded them for so long?) For books I long to read but don't have, like Joan Didion's Blue Nights, it's either the library or Paperbacks Unlimited, where I can trade the old for something new. It's time to appreciate what I already HAVE.

2. Perhaps this is all part of my nesting instinct, kicking into high gear as I hit gestational week 33, but I will continue to get rid of all extraneous things that sit wilting in closets and storage spaces. Next up? That plastic 3-drawer organizer I've had since freshman year of college (some of you must remember it!) that used to serve a noble purpose but which now serves as a holding tank for all things useless, sticky, expired, and dreadfully unorganized.

3. Dance more!

4. I want to publish at least ten new pieces in ten new places this year. This might be overly ambitious given that I'm going to be a new (exhausted?) mother, but I've got to aim high! Besides, I've already got one down, a piece coming out on mothering.com, the web-site of Mothering Magazine :)

5. It might seem hard to imagine how I'll do this, given all the reading, dancing, writing, and mothering ahead of me, but my final resolution is to RELAX. Allow myself more down time in which I have nothing planned. See where it might lead. Or even better: care not where it leads.