The Year of of Living Deeply

 

S                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          o

It’s a funny thing, making a New Year Resolution more than half-way through the year. I was having a bit of a catch up on one of my favourite blogs, Transactions With Beauty by Shawna Lemay. (If you don’t already know it, all I can say is: lucky you! You have a real treat of visual and literary stimulation in store.)

Here is the post I read, called ‘If your enthusiasm wanes‘. Now Shawna is one of those writers who could describe the reading the phone book and I know I would find it interesting. She recommends books like no one else and she is never wrong. As somebody very wise once said, nothing much needs to happen except

show that you turned up. Well, this is what Shawna does. Every day, it seems. Or nearly. And there are beautiful, really beautiful

photographs to accompany her depth-charge words, just to prove it.

Anyway, among other things (she always reflects on at least three or four important things/quotes/poems/ideas in each post and yet seems to make them all The-Main-Key-Thing) Shawna was on this occasion noting that she had noted the impact of a blog post by David Cain at Raptitude.com encouraging us to

Go Deeper, Not Wider. (That’s another thing I love about Shawna’s posts: one thing often leads to another thing. For a person who is curious and has a short attention span this is lovely.)

You can read David’s post on the link above. It’s actually worth reading two or three times, preferably not in the same sitting because what I think he is saying is that we should, ahem, go deeper, not wider. By which I took to mean

 

 

 

that I might need to slow          down a bit

that it might not be such a good idea to always dash off to the next thing

that I might benefit from being less addicted to FOMO

that I don’t always need to follow the new follower or like the cake/cat/thing/poem/evenpoem! with already 34 or even 104 likes

that I might be able to live just as long if I do not buy that new notebook/album/song/jumper/book of poems RIGHTTHISSECOND

 

—                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               which I really

                           really

         kind          of

                                             hate

 

(-ahem)

S                                                                               o

since about July-mid-July-whenIreadShawna’s                                             amazing                                                                                                                                                 post

I have been trying to cut down on

buying new stuff, especially stationery

reading every          blog

being outraged at every Trump/Brexit/Corbyn article (and actually trying not to read them in the first place)

having to have that CD someone told me about , ditto new book of poems, ditto filmjumper and etc [insert your own vice                                                                   here          ]

 

and while i have been not wholly successful (I saw some notebooks on sale at CultPens, and, well, you know) and ditto two books by poets I really admire that just would have been rude -actually, really rude_                                       not                                                                                      to buy                                                                                                                      and an EP by this really great band i saw at Greenbelt called Pica Pica and ditto the very necessary and powerful #MeToo anthology by Deborah Alma (which makes me slow anyway because it came out before

Christmas

)

 

I have been generally much

[I have cut down to only a handful of blogs which I read, and actually reread some books already on my shelf and gone back to some others I have not looked at in a long while, and listened to music I thought I had started to dislike just because I had forgotten I owned it and it’s done me a lot of good actually, and I’m going to carry on posting about what I’ve noticed these might be small or big or quotey or poemy or picturey or spiritual things or music even i’ve always wanted to write about music or travelly or teachery or conversationy and anyway you can look away, you don’t have to like it or join in, but it’s where I am going (I do love a blog Post with a signPost)                           ]

 

happier