"Inspirement" for the New Year

Not quite a New Year's list

Yesterday I decided to race my 15-year-old niece up a sand dune. The adventure started with a big family hike to cap off our New Year’s celebration. The only one missing was my husband who has been visiting his mum in England. With him away I have been trying to be the fun parent for my 9-year-old who wants desperately for me to enjoy his new xbox with him. (I have written about video games and the importance of co-play, but I never said it was easy!)

All to say, a key learning for me this holiday has been the need to balance out my errand-running, did you floss your teeth self with games and race cars. That’s why on this winter walk I decided to amp up my adventurer self. Dammit, I was going to make it up that hill and impress my kid!

From the bottom of the dune Frankie called out: “Mama do you need inspirement? You can do it! Don’t fall!” Buoyed by his belief in me, my super fun self collapsed at the top of the sand hill in 39 seconds.

(Of note: My niece did it in 30 but she’s 29 years younger than me so I’m calling it a tie. In the midst of writing this piece I turned to my sister, the mother of the actual sand dune race winner, to share of my new year’s fitness victory — to which she replied yes, you told me already…twice…)

Key takeaway: Celebrate your wins for yourself — twice if need be!

Frankie’s inspirement did its job on the dune. So much so that I’ve decided to capitalize on the effectiveness of his invented word in the uphill battle that will inevitably be 2024.

Here’s my not quite a list for the new year (with a few links):

To-Do:

• Drink more water

• Write for 30 minutes in the morning every day. Emails don’t count.

• Play more games

• Light more candles (We did a whole

  Reframeables Podcast and Newsletter
  event in celebration of candles — especially the process of making them in community!)

• Delete or move apps that bring up hard feelings to the back page of my phone. That way I can deal with them when I’m mentally prepared!

Don’t:

• Don’t impose limits when it comes to creativity and link-making. It’s so tempting to do this in academic work where limits feel safe. But pedagogy is iterative and that means trying out new connections. So I’m channeling my dune self with this one.

• Don’t try and fix someone else’s bad mood. There’s a difference between empathy and an unhealthy transference of emotion.

Contemplate incorporating:

• More fiction

  • more reading and writing of it. In fact, the “inspirement” has been so strong of late that I already have eight small chapters of my wattpad thriller ready to be consumed. (Popcorn or wine or — both — required!)

• More art

  • more visits to the Art Gallery of Ontario with both

    Alan Davey
    and
    Rebecca Davey

  • more art-focused chats with inspiring observers of humankind like

    Nishant Jain
    , an upcoming guest on Reframeables.

    

• More phone calls

  • This article talks about making the healthy shift to phone calls vs. a modern reliance on texting. Though I know other smart people have written of the great value of whatsapp groups for sustaining friendships, currently I’m feeling the need for more human-to-human interactions. We’ll see how long I last.

• More giving. In all the ways I can.

Happy new year! May inspirement support your various dune ascents in these early days of 2024 for you!