Through the Looking Glass: 47. New Years Resolutions

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

47. New Years Resolutions

Resolution can be defined as the mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute; firmness of purpose. Through my life I have been described as being in a mental state but more often as lacking in firmness or more aptly... infirm.

I have always hated New Years. I make resolutions that I have every intention off keeping but never manage to accomplish. As the wisdom and insight of ageing begin to gel I have begun to search for a way to avoid my annually foible into failure.

Lack of success is disconcerting enough but when friends and family encourage me to return to my wicked ways it becomes down right discouraging. The year I resolved to lose weight because every piece of clothing I owned had inexplicably shrunk over the Christmas Holiday was typical. Four days after embarking on a high protein, low fat, chelated, roughage enhanced, yeast free micro biotic diet I turned around to find my partner offering me a rather large slice of chocolate cheesecake. "Not to discourage you , she explained, "but the growls from your stomach keep me awake at night and your growling throughout the day makes me want to leave home......eat." Never one to pass up good advice I left my resolution in the dust in order to make someone else's life more bearable. The nobility of my act could not alter the fact that my clothes still were to small to be comfortable in.

The New Years following I found myself in the same situation. Remembering my previous experience I determined that I would need to try a different strategy to reduce my weight. A new, one size larger wardrobe each year was something I just could not afford. I resolved at five minutes before midnight to try a vigorous exercise program that would enable me to fit back into my clothes. Two or three nights a week were spent at the gym. Exercise bikes, weight training, stretching, swimming and skipping were all employed to exorcise away the extra accumulation of good eating. When my partner hugged me I began to moan. It was, alas, not out of passion but rather because every part of my corpse was more tender than I thought possible. When I began to complain incessantly about all the sore muscles she was crushing, she hid my t-shirt and shorts and took me out to buy some new clothes.

Smoking following a similar pattern the new years after that. A week into withdrawal resulted in my friends chipping in and buying me a pack of the brand they knew I had smoked. As I deeply inhaled the room began to spin and a measure of sanity returned. I looked down at my nicotine stained fingers and was thankful for concerned friends but discouraged once more with my inability to maintain a resolution. For a variety of reasons all of my resolutions over the last decade have met a similar fate.

As mid-life works itself out I have come to understand that I must set goals that are attainable and realistic. A bevy of self help books and intense therapy have pointed toward the same thing...."Resolve yourself to aspirations that are both lofty and attainable". Meditation, speculation and obsessive journaling put me in touch with what I could attain but a quote from Oscar Wilde focused me on the resolutions that I am certain I will be able to maintain this year. Mr. Wilde stated," The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it". With that in mind I have resolved to eat as I please, smoke no more but no less as well, to exercise when I feel that rare urge and to resist everything except temptation. To date I have managed to keep my resolution quite easily and not drive anyone to distraction. I may not live as long as I hope but the time I am allotted will be spent more happily by me and by those who have suffered through all my past resolutions.

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Introduction

Having moved at least twenty-five times in fifteen years has opened a world of learning to me. In six decades, an education ranging from the coldness of large cities to the isolation of remote rural locations to the busybody gossip of small towns and the wonder of the prairie and it's ocean of grass have all left their impressions on me.

Recently I relocated to a small city in British Columbia. It touted itself as a historical, cultural, educational and, over-all wonderful, place to live. Once I was past the trees and the rocks, the heights and the hills, the water and the wind, I calmed down and was ready to look at the people I was sharing that space with.

Every location I have ever squatted has had it's share of characters. Players in the cities along with the wide range of tinfoil hat wearers and baggy pants skaters were a given. Pop up strangers at odd hours surprised me with their appearance in the middle of nowhere. Rumours of my serial killer past from neighbours I had never met never swayed me. The wonder of gazing on the effects of wind on the grass ocean interrupted by a landowner enquiring why I was leaning on his fence was oft forgiven.

In this new locale a variety of characters as I had experienced elsewhere was a given. The density and variety of them however gave me more surprise than I would have expected.

I had heard comments about this place being a time warp to the sixties. However I only saw few that , by their appearance, I could say lived through the sixties. What apparitions appeared were younger and more colourful than I remember from that vague decade.

Purple haired strong armed accordionists, heavy head shaved violinists clutching tiny instruments, winter coated scarf wrapped individuals in shorts and oddly calm people with large coffees wandered the streets.

They wandered in and out of new age crystal shops, expressed opinions on local radio, bought nothing but organic food. They played jazz on squeeze boxes, made strings and wood sing in ways not intended, talked to themselves as they tightened their scarves and became more serene with each sip of coffee.

Characters here are more concentrated than in any other locale I have ever lived. It is a point of interest as well as point of concern.

It remains to be seen whether I will be mugged with organic carrots, side swiped by hooligan mountain bikers, be harangued with advice on dressing warmly or kept awake nights by jazzy sounds from an errant squeeze box. Whatever the outcome I am certain I could find it in no other place on earth to explore these particular uncertainties.

Until I am transplanted again, I extend every new-ager and boarder, every subculture economist and spiritualist, every would-be and wanna-be my deep thanks for extending me the opportunity of educating myself one measure more.