Intentions for a New Year: Mothers of Invention

• Stand up straighter, literally (must go back to those yoga classes)
• Play and laugh more with my son, without distractions
• Try to jumpstart my journal writing again
• After seventeen years, truly embrace my identity as a professional, lifetime musician, and see what decisions that might lead me to make for the second half of my career
• Expand my capacity for love

Designer Laurene Boym hopes to:

• Be brave enough to leave whatever doesn’t bring me bliss behind
• Embrace the unknown

Donna Storey writes that, “I want to pay attention to the details of my life: the quiet delight of gazing at my sons’ faces, the pleasure of eating a perfectly sweet mandarin orange, the sound of the rain at night. It sounds simple and it will be a real challenge in my scattered life, but I know it will help me savor and treasure what’s really important to me, and it will definitely help my writing.”

Chef Duskie Estes desires:

• Less cell phone connection
• To see the glass as half full more of the time
• To do less of what I have to and more of what I want to
• And to return to a physically strong state

Visual artist Jill Smith writes, “This year I have decided to be more in tune with that part of myself that holds power. I read somewhere that in most cases when you hear the word power, it is interpreted as something negative, something to hold over another person. But I’m thinking of that part of myself that has the power to accomplish a task, evoke positive change, or see things in a joyful, positive, calm, and strong way.”

Alright, you’ve read the lists. Now go and find that warm shawl, wrap it around yourself, and see what streaks of color you can paint across the soft gray canvas of January.