2024 has been an objectively shitty year. I’ll spare you the detailed list, but it involved the deaths of immediate family members, health issues, the ongoing chronic stress of parenting disabled children, and, last but not least, the election results here in the US.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that there were, as always, moments of light. My family traveled, to the coast and to Disney World. I took solo trips to Iceland and Squam Lake. I devoured books (by volume, this has been the best reading year of my life; more about that later) and completed more knitting projects in a calendar year than ever before. I deepened friendships. I joined a yoga studio that also happens to be a lovely, genuine community. I went to sound baths and got acupuncture. More than anything, I got to love my husband and my kids.
And so now onwards and upwards, with a strong back and soft front. I am always one for self-reflection and never more than when a new year is knocking at the door.
I am pruning and rearranging; in 2025 I am focused on committing to my writing life.
I’m plotting a course through four of Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way courses, as well as some of her other titles. Having completed The Artist’s Way a few years ago, I am hopeful her books will provide scaffolding as I move back into a regular writing practice. This will also be the foundation of what I plan to share here on The Workbooks over the coming year; there will be other stuff, too, I hope, but this seems like a manageable commitment and also like it might be of interest/usefulness to others. If you’d like to read along with me, I will post more about this project very soon.
I’ve been spending most evenings, cozy beneath quilts made by late father’s maternal grandmother, dipping into my MakseLife planner (what I’m using for goal setting + also a sort of “rough draft” planner), and setting up my B5 Sterling Ink Common Planner (the pages are huge; I love it). I’ve got some writing courses on deck (Rachel Thompson’s Writerly Love intensive and Minda Honey’s Daddy Dearest: Writing about our Fathers) for the first time in forever, and I’m fully diving into Dream Book.
I am not particularly optimistic for the year ahead socially or politically. I am trying to concentrate, instead, on myself and my home life, although sometime even that feels hard to hold. My plan, I think, is to build a raft out of books + art + nervous system regulation and just keep sailing on.
There’s more than enough room if you want to join me.
xo, Julia
More than anything, I got to love my husband and my kids. WOW! Thanks for naming that as a piece of the light. It is a gift!