The Plan

Dear Reader,

My title smacks of New Year’s Resolution Syndrome. The impulse plan for “a new me” is timeworn and almost trite. But triteness is rooted in truth. One’s actions suggest a bit of control over a world that seems to defy it. There is little we can do little about some events in 2020 but some that we can do more, so the creation of a plan is advisable. Here is mine.

1. Stay healthy and strong. Don’t back down on eating sensible foods, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep.

2. Keep cyber life to the necessary minimum. How often do I need to check my messages? Search sites? The plan is to monitor this part of life that didn’t even exist for me 20 years ago. Evaluate, then adjust. Don’t delete, simply adjust. Less time spent in this activity means more hours in the studio, writing or doing something that sustains life and makes it worth living.

3. Which brings me to the opening quotation by artist Pierre Auguste Renoir. Art heals and inspires. That is a fact. One year, I vowed to go to one museum a month, because it is a part of my continuing education. I cannot remember if I made good on my vow, but it’s a goal with built-in rewards, so I will make it again. MoMA, here I come.

4. My plan is to continue the quest for a publisher who will transform the manuscript for the biography/memoir resulting from a decade of research into a book. Search, write proposals, revise, anticipate changes. Learn more about the process, which has changed somewhat from the 1970s, when I began submitting to publishers. Think “elevator pitch” – a few sentences about the book that will grab the reader (or publisher’s) attention and make them want MORE!

5. Since I work from home, I control my own schedule. Next to my computer, I hang a handwritten chart or map with the year in the center and 4 main areas of my life arranged around it: art, writing, website, personal. It’s a “to-do-list” that keeps me on track. I have dozens of them because this is a strategy that works. My 2020 map has activities listed under art and writing projects and commitments, so the future is already beginning to come into focus.

One outcome of plan making will present itself in December 2020, when I read this blog and see how I did this year. My prediction is that I’ll need to forgive myself for not doing better in some categories but celebrate what I’ve been able to accomplish others.

Real life is a balance between both.