From Vienna to Venice

Day 111

Happy New Year everybody, it's good to be back in contact with my keyboard, I've missed blogging more than I expected. Been too busy with Xmas, etc., but that's all done with now. So ......... New Year Resolutions, what do we think of them?

Each year, people all over the globe start out afresh with lots of good intentions, some high levels of enthusiasm, and the almost certain knowledge that they won't last 'till the end of January. Sadly, that's not very resolute, and it doesn't resolve much either, so I don't think I will join them in that.

I do like the concept of an appointed time of year being adopted for self-assessment, however. While we hunker down away from the cold, biting weather, waiting for the days to lengthen and the first signs of Spring to arrive, this is a perfect time to examine our lives, our hearts, our health, and our dreams.

Rather than rush headlong into another diet or smoking ban, to join a gym or finally get through 'War and Peace', perhaps we should allow ourselves a little more time to really find what will bring us balance, harmony, growth and joy. To ask ourselves what is missing and what gets in the way, and to explore where we have drifted into habits which no longer serve any useful purpose in our lives.

I have one of those that I can identify quite clearly. I run a hot bath every morning - as hot as I can take - because overnight I used to develop backache so severe it was what woke me in the morning, and left me bent double and hardly able to walk (and no, a new bed didn't help, but a very hot bath did). But my back's not so very bad now. I can walk fine, even if I am rather stiff and achey, (but frankly, at my age, who isn't?).

I don't need a bath every morning, taking over an hour out of my day, I really don't - I'm just used to doing it and it's nice. So I ask myself, has it any real place in My New Life? Would a shower do? What could I use the time for instead? What do I really need? What else have I filled my time with that could make way for something that brings me closer to health and happiness, success and prosperity, excitement and joy?

I watched 'Under the Tuscan Sun' on TV last night, the film of Frances Mayes decision to start a whole new life of her own in Italy, and I was struck by something she said. Apparently, there was once a railway line constructed over the Alps that ran from Vienna to Venice, long before a train was built that could handle the journey. They just believed that one day there would be and therefore the track would be ready when it was. Such faith, such optimism, how utterly brilliant is that!

I need to do that - to build a track for My New Life that upholds and supports it for when my body allows my illness to depart, and my heart to follow it's true course. It can't be laid in one fell swoop, so no rigid, domineering, New Year's Resolutions for me. Just one small step at a time, like each sleeper of the railway, end on end, until it's done.

No bath tomorrow then. I will listen to my inner voice and wait to hear what it wants me to do instead. This New Life of mine is not a race, but a journey, and it is more important to take the RIGHT steps than to hurry along taking the wrong ones. I will not rush in to fill the gap, but let myself be guided, though I must confess that I find this far harder.

When I looked at my 'Inspiration Book' recently, I was struck by how many pages were filled with tangible goals, and pictures of things to have. It was not a book about things to Be. If I have learnt anything through nineteen years of illness, it is that being is the critical thing, not doing. Get the being right and the having takes care of itself.

So ............ New Year for me is a time for assessment, adjustment, realignment, and hope. A time to take care. A time for loving and listening to myself, for asking hard questions, and giving gentle answers. My measurement will be not 'what have I achieved?', but 'who am I being?'. I will tread lightly but firmly upon the new ground of this decade, in a slightly different direction, over and over, until the track leads me way out over the Alps.