This year - quiet, please.

I love the end of the year, not for the noise of New Year’s celebrations, but for the reset.

The symbol of this reset is my new planner - which I also love. The blank pages waiting to be filled with ideas and intentions and lists. I love the feeling that something can be arranged differently this time, that with a little attention and care, the days ahead might fall into a better order.

I love a list. I love a goal. I love starting fresh.

I feel it at every start. Each month and even each week, another chance.

I feel it at the start of the school year, even though my own children have been out of school for years. Time for new routines, systems, a chance to do it right this time.

There is something deeply reassuring about beginnings. Not because they promise perfection, but because they remind me that nothing is fixed. There is always room to begin again.

As I have grown older, my relationship with that feeling has shifted.

My goals are less about productivity now or bucket list items and much more about quality. I am not trying to get more things or do more things. I am trying to live more intentionally, quietly, and true to myself.

I am not as interested in optimizing my life (Okay, I am but not as much).
I am interested in inhabiting it.

This year, I am hoping to say no more often.
Not out of rigidity, but out of care.

And in the space that creates, I want more of what I truly value.
Time with friends and family.
Time outside, walking, noticing, breathing.
Time with my books.
Time knitting and sewing, making things slowly with my hands.

The reset I love is not about reinvention.
It is about remembering what matters to me and saving time for it.

So this year, as the calendar turns and the pages open, I am choosing a quieter beginning. One rooted in attention rather than urgency. One that recognizes the finite amount of time we all have and prioritizes values over ambition.

In that spirit, I have gathered a simple 21 day reset. A short series of daily questions meant to slow the pace, clear some space, and help me live with a little more intention. I’m happy to share it. It’s a way to feel you are in charge of your days, that you shape them and they don’t happen to you.

Nothing demanding. Just small reflections. Opportunities to of notice your life and pick what fills you up the most. I would be glad to share it with you. Send me a note.

Here is to new beginnings and quiet lives.

Keeping Quiet

Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.