It is that middle stretch, the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, the lame duck period of 2017, last-minute week of goal setting or goal rushing-to-completion, week of laundry and cleaning preparatory to the new year (if you're into that), week of staring at the sky and glancing backwards and forwards.
For me, it began with a scramble and then an obsession with mini Christmas scrapbooks, as I realized that I'd begun several and just not finished them. These aren't massive projects, just 4x6 brag books stuffed with pictures and a minimum of text, but it takes time to arrange and print and cut the pages to size and explain why all of a sudden our ink surplus has turned into a severe shortage. Also, memory albums are sticky--you look at one picture, then you've looked at eighty, then you're sinking into those snows of yesteryear, the ones that are supposedly vanished but are piling up over you nonetheless. It takes time to dig out of the past.
That project was kicked off in anticipation of a visit by our in-laws that, thanks to a random hard freeze over the New Year's holiday, won't be happening right now. So I've had the chance to dive into the other memory books that I've started and not completed, all the birthday albums, Diva Night reminiscences, The Year The Yard Was All Morning Glories, 4th of July celebrations followed by bubbles and fireworks...wherever the images happen to accumulate. A project that was a single book catching up with photos that I didn't want to lose has become a potential year-long nostalgia fest. If I actually finish these, there will be pics of The Year That Was All Memory Books.
Perhaps you have projects that get out of hand, too.
Which brings me to the other projects. The writing ones that also found themselves well begun but abandoned. Here is the backward glance: the 2016 election was a sharp shock to me. But it wasn't the first. There have been the difficulty of finding a job and assorted concerns that finally coalesced into a single decision: I'm not writing for anyone else. I've been a member of writing groups for years and I used to be better about submissions. Now, though, I realize that I want to make art that speaks to the people closest to me--to my family, to a few friends--and the memory books speak to that, as does the few writing projects that I'm keeping for this year. Here is the glance forward: 2018 is the year that I want to be able to return gifts I received with interest, novellas for reaching out, flash collections for the peace that I received from the parks before Harvey washed them away.
This year, I want to work through from the beginning to the end and I want to be able to reach this in-between, lame duck week of 2018 with memories of connection rather than endless, mouse-wheel project anxiety. I am thankful, grateful, every day for the people who gave my writing their time and attention and it may be that this is a slow turn back toward a more familiar track. For now, I am thinking about blankets and hot cocoa and a hard freeze that breaks one year from another. About looking forward and glancing back. And about whether or not any of this can be captured in a photo, embellished with stickers, and placed in a memory book for 2018.
Good wishes and tamable projects,
Chrissa
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