Taking It Slow in 2011

I rang in the New Year in this idyllic unnamed location. It is dreamlike, magical, this place our good friends are kind enough to share with a group of us every year.

I slept late on the first day of the New Year, longer on the second. Ugh. The pressure of a new year, the possibilities never ending, like in the world I imagine might exist across the glassy slightly frozen lake.

But here it is, day 3, and I awoke early again as is my usual, slightly stressed for the re-emergence into the post-holiday world but ready.  It is time to try again. Today, I give gold stars to all who are getting up the gumption to get it together, to fix the things they saw as problems last year, to continue to do what worked and hope it still does, to figure a wholly new plan. It definitely doesn't happen magically with the turning of the clock from 11:59 to midnight. It takes effort, thought, faith.

I walked into a cafe in Ft. Greene today that I visited one day on a fluke, and ran into an old favorite barista from my neighborhood who had written on the chalkboard, "A New Year, a New You." I laughed out loud. The new me will have to come from my own efforts, I realize, there is no magic bullet. George Michael's "Faith" came on and I almost got up to dance. Never truer words were spoken to such an awesome beat..."Ya gotta have faith." Say what you will about the man, whatever he does in bathrooms with whomever is his business. It's a great song.

I do have faith, I believe in the great possibilities for the coming year, for the auspicious 2011. As my fearless fabulous yoga instructor, Judy, coached us this morning, "you have to remember to consciously breathe." Such a thing as that, even something so seemingly easy as breathing, like yoga or any other endeavor, takes "practice, practice, practice," she said.

Mostly what is required is something I vow to do even more of this year, to PAY ATTENTION. It is one bit of advice that has lasted the test of time, since French philosopher Montaigne opined about it in the 1500s. One must be wholly conscious to figure their own needs, the needs of others and the needs of the universe. Gold star for trying. It is the Year of the Rabbit, I'm told, a time to take it slow. Phew. That's just what we need.