New Year’s Day has passed and 2025 stretches bright and unblemished before us, like a sheet of unmarked snow. What will we do with this blank slate? How will we make our marks and with what will we make them?
Like many, I don’t believe in resolutions. They’re always the same, anyway: lose weight, be kinder, be better with money, etc., etc. Are these not the same things we wish all the time, every day, not just at the beginning of the year? Perhaps it’s only now that we feel compelled to voice them, thinking that stating our intentions when our minds are on the future is more likely to make them happen rather than blindly muddling through a thicket of mid-year aspirations and regrets.
The other day I read an article on nature writing by Richard Smyth that was critical of some nature writers but not others, without good reason, and that managed to mangle its thesis so much so that I wasn’t clear if the writer was arguing with himself or with others. But it did have one beautiful line, that I posted on BlueSky because I liked it so much. “A lot of writing on nature now gives me the sense of an elaborate shell, built – not without care – around a fragile organism. The shell might be splendid, to some eyes, but it’s not much good to anyone if the thing inside is dead.” Social media is a strange thing – I immediately got two comments against the article. When all I liked was that one line. Perhaps I should have been clearer.
Perhaps that is my New Year’s resolution: to be clearer. When I speak and when I write. To be more specific, write tighter sentences, finish my phrases when talking instead of trailing off into incomprehensibility. With my book coming out, I’ll have to talk to people about it. This will require that I be clear, so I might as well practice beforehand.
So many things to do before launching a book. Writing and placing companion essays. Marketing and publicity. Sharing with friends and acquaintances. One of my initiatives, which I started in December, is #FieldworkFriday posts on Instagram. Every Friday I post an image from one of my field sites. I started with Hilda Glacier in 1998, and am now on John Evans Glacier in 2000. I have 3-4 photos for each site, enough to go to June and beyond. I’ve also heard from several people that they’ve pre-ordered the book. Pre-orders give publishers a sense of how popular your book will be, so if you haven’t already and want to read it, please pre-order via your local bookstore or via Amazon if you must. Suggest your library get a copy if you can’t afford to buy one (I completely understand, books are quite pricey these days).
But it’s not just the year of my book. It’s also the year I’ve signed up for a 12 km trail run at my local “mountain.” It may not be very tall, but the race organizers have managed to make one section a very steep uphill that they note will have you dragging your chin on the ground. Delightful. I don’t know why I signed up – well I do. I was so excited about doing something on the mountain, excited by being able to be on my own turf, as it were. I thought that 8 months was plenty of time to train for it. I wasn’t thinking hard enough about the difficulty, however, like with the Lake to Lake Walk I did a few years ago, which I imagined to be a lovely stroll over rebuilt train trestles with views of water below. Instead it was a fast walk during which I worked hard to keep up with a group ahead of me because of all the bear sign I saw on the trail. I figured there was safety in numbers.
One thing that will hamper my training for the trail run is a foot injury. It’s been painful for two months now, and I haven’t been able to get out walking at all. Which makes me a bit cranky and feeling like a podgy blob stuffed into an armchair unable to do anything. Even cycling makes it hurt. In the meantime, I’ve got a new bathing suit and will try swimming again – haven’t been to the pool in ages so this will be a bit of an adventure (I don’t exactly have a swimsuit-model body).
So I suppose I do have goals for 2025. Have a good book launch. Not die on the trail run. That sort of thing.
What are you hoping for?
