A resolution, this is not. A continued reclamation and gentle reminder, I intend. Winter is still here and a calendar new year represents a reset for us fiscally or academically but not necessarily internally. Like everything else in nature our bodies require rest, dormancy and time to recharge. If we aren’t getting enough of it, I believe other signs of intervention take hold and sit us down with achey bodies and breath thwarting cough.

I say this to remind you to go easy and listen to what your body is telling you. If you do have a little more agency over your schedule, consider halting that heightened expectation of an over productive January. Pace your productivity, maybe strategize and plan from your couch with a hot mug of tea or broth, or a glass of wine. I had to reel myself in twice this week after jumping into shop renovations without a proper plan, overwhelming myself, turning my wheels in the mud and finally making a list and deciding to take things one wall at a time.

In 2018 flight birds guided me down an icy 95-South from Brooklyn, into the yard of my childhood home. A place a that knows me deeply and moves me the same way. Rocky red clay soil supports the frame of a home that warmed and kept my girl self then, and my woman self now. A reflection through time of how valuable our relationship to those within our proximity truly is. This home is not spectacular in any way aside from its relationship to me and my mother and her mother. It’s dynamic in story and the village it was placed in, not in any grandiose architectural way. My valuation differs from the meek numbers our housing market places on our modest but proud parcels.