The the year is wearing thin. This season of short days confines me to my home where I keep an eye on the wood-stove. I feel older as winter approaches. Now is an opportunity to spend my time in a deliberate way.
It’s Tuesday after dinner and I have about forty minutes worth of time before I wear out to ‘get something done.’ I check my Bullet Journal and find I have, in fact, two short tasks - and I can get them both done. I can file those bills and papers to clear off my desk and answer a (non-personal) email I’ve put off. My version of daylight savings time.
I used to tell my students that while it’s certain we don’t have control over much in our lives, it’s also certain that if we make choices based on what we want, versus just letting stuff happen, we have a better chance of success.
Get a wish list and let that guide your actions. Also, just creating these wishes lets us begin to reflect on our values and aspirations. That context lends depth and color to experience.
I wrote about starting a BuJo in a previous post. And now I am reflecting on what effect the act of annotating my intentions and making note of what actually happens has on my experience. In many ways it’s just a mindfulness exercise. Stop and notice - what am I doing?
Mine is not, perhaps, the kind of bullet journal that the Inventor intended, but Ryder Carroll’s point is to use the notebook in a way that works for you - not that you copy an exact format.
I think about a lecture — actually a teacher professional development event —that I attended a long time ago. The presenter emphasized the importance of using notes as an extension of your mind. There’s no reason to use your mind as a grocery list. Use paper as storage - like a floppy disk - and you can expand your thinking as it frees up space in your brain. Computers were a new thing then, and disks were pretty big and flexible. But his idea of using paper as a part of a larger desk that expands your mind has always made sense to me.
But my life itself expands into many places. Looking at the mail shows I’m involved in numerous small contracts, obligations and that I create a lot of records. All transactions, purchases, and interactions involve other people. Someone picked the fruit, planted the trees and even hybridized the Cosmic Crisp apple I just bought.
I’m tangentialy indebted to a lot of other people in the world.
Groups of people share risks and pay into insurance for health, homes and cars. Even now someone is putting a box together for me with things I ordered with a credit card from my cell phone.
There is a lot to keep track of, so I’m writing it down.
Last Thursday’s agenda, for instance, included calling my insurance company — I needed a new card and I was locked out of my online account. It turned out that AI had changed my mailing address to my son’s previous California apartment, so my real address didn’t work with my account number. I talked to a woman on the phone who fixed it.
After other tasks got finished, I stopped at my local QFC to get the new COVID shot labeled Spikevax. (Probably not named after my dog.) This vaccination which helps not just me, but also people I interact with, has been in development for decades first to fight AIDS, and then SARS.
Once home, I sent text messages with the Democrats to get out the vote for Ohio’s Issue #1 to enshrine reproductive rights for women. After moving some drawing materials from the living room back to the studio and other chores, I attended a Zoom meeting with Indivisible Marin - a political action group I joined in 2021.
Of course I have yet to mention the other things that punctuate a day, like dealing with pets, bringing in firewood while it’s not raining, laundry, dishes and more. Hard to remember that I used to do all of this while teaching forty-plus hours a week.
I also unloaded the kiln - my firing went well!
This week I’ll be taking part of the set to its new home. I have had to be deliberate, mindful, but also not think too hard about what I’m doing to make these. Being able to forget about everything else that needs attention (they are in the BuJo and will get done) has helped make my time in the studio better — the work is more fluid.
Something else I want to mention came up in my Indy Marin Zoom ‘happy hour’ chat was just how terrible a lot of people are feeling about the world right now due to so many innocent victims of war, hate, racism and even petty grievance!
I see pictures on my screens of humans — bombed, beaten, flooded, ragged, and starved — and I feel their suffering. Some of my freinds feel the world has become acutly more dangerous to them personally when they read about antisemitic rethoric, racist dog-whisles, or learn about representives introducing laws to ban Palistine imagration. I can’t pretend I don’t know. I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt all of us.
Let me also make a disclaimer here - I lead a privileged life. No, I am not without worry for my well-being given the state of the world, however I have a home, a family, pets, friends and I live in a corner of a rich nation. My imediate environment feels benign.
So, now is as good a time as any to intend change. It takes one person at a time, one action at a time, to create a change. Imagine how much good could happen if we can vote people into our government who intend to help people… Who are pro-human and civil rights. There are candidates who believe we should be able to love who we love, make our our own reproductive decisions, and level the playing field so 99% of the world does not labor to support the billionaires. It can happen.
Again, let me suggest reading and following Chop Wood, Carry Water to find small acts that can create change. Because, she writes, hope is an action. Share the link.
Also check out Mobilize.us — there are lots of small actions you can take to create a better future. There are also groups who have issues in common - find your in-crowd. Now is the time. Election day 2023 is tomorrow, but we need to work towards 2024.
Be attentive to inntention. It can set into action a chain of events that just might change our world.
Yours,
Ann
PS I am going to do what everyone else does and shamelssly suggest you push the little heart to ‘like’ the post — and please leave a comment. It does help make newsletter more visible.
And it’s nice to share ideas. For instance — AI has changed my address on at least three occasions and kept me from getting mail and deliveries. Have you had this experience?
PPS I cant rember who said it, but I’ve heard it explained that Aspirations are not Ambitions - Aspirations reflect values that are larger than a single goal of an ambition. Aspirations are the means to an end — ambitions are just an end.
PPPS - It’s odd in some ways to have joined a group in California, Indivisible Marin, but I started wirting postcards and talking with them online a few years ago, got to know them and they seems like my tribe.
Lovely letter Ann. Tell me more about the bullet journal. xoxo