I had so much to be thankful for in 2010: I started my website (viewed daily by handfuls of people!), published two books (if only in the smallest way), and got a lot of work done, which is unusual for me. It was the year of the grind – applied daily like grease to the wheel, pushing my way through the small calamities of getting anything of personal value done (all of the small roadblocks involved in producing things) as well as managing my personal life (relationships don’t stay healthy untended). This was the year I applied myself. For a naturalized homegrown Southern bum (iced tea and window gazing de rigueur) it was a bitch, man. At the moment I am in recovery mode.
So what does this mean for 2011? I don’t think I can keep pushing myself in quite the same way – I am not sure it would work. I think I will swing this year like a kid on the playground: a few pumps then glide. This next phase feels like it should be more natural. A dear friend once told me that I did not have “blonde ambition” (all gay men return to Madonna) but last year I may have proved him wrong. But I certainly don’t think this would do for the long term. My nature is dreamy so perhaps this year I will allow myself to ruminate a little more. It might be time to go organic (and I ain’t talking Whole Foods) and just let things develop at a more faithful, slower pace. We have most of us been blessed by the technology gods and the all of the opportunities they provided. I think, however, that something has gone neglected in me and maybe in the world as well. The slow-cured, the illogical, the fanciful, the non-linear: the dream.
One of my favorite phrases is “into the woods” (a nod to Sondheim) for what it connotes – going deep down to our native selves and possibly toward the unknown. We all have our many ancestors inside of us but how many of us take to time to listen for them? I would like for this to be the year that I let it all mellow, the year I stop measuring, anticipating and judging. I want to do my work more slowly and with more listening - even if this means fewer results. I want to see what it is I have yet to discover about myself, and all on simmer. It won’t be easy but I want to relax a little this year. I want to take it slow.
For the rest of you it is blonde ambition. Get to work! And Happy New Year.
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