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Note to readers: Christina's journal entries are added periodically as the seasons of the year roll around. To read previous journal entries, choose from the menu on the right.
January 2006: Journal Entry #2
Dear Storycatchers,
Sitting on my kitchen counter is a candle that is often lit in the grey hours of a northern winter season. Next to the candle is a little card with a quote from Rainier Maria Rilke:
"So now let us believe in this new year
given to us untouched,
full of chances that have never been."
I am thinking about all the stories that have never been, and how a new year, and the kind of reflection that we resolve to hang one as we come into January's busyness, is a chance to break silence and discover stories inside us we may not have known were there, and to make new stories that will shape our choices and our reactions to upcoming events.
 The new year always reminds me what story does: how it teaches, educates and informs, motivates change, changes our hearts and minds, articulates relationships and deepens memories. I'm always interested in what story media makes of the year past and what my friends and I make of the year past. Between the holidays, my partner and I pull out photographs and journals and memorabilia we've been tucking away into files and make a scrapbook of the major events that have happened in our lives, and in the world in the past 12 months. We read to each other, we ponder what it might to look over these pages when we are old; or what it might be like for someone in the future, a great-grandchild, a local historian, to look through the story we are intentionally making of our life in our times. And then we face forward into the untouched year, the chances that have never been. What is the story we want to set in place like the first rock to stand on when crossing a stream?
There are several ways I work this story into my journal writing time, and I invite you to join me—in January, or any time that you are starting anew: like a birthday, a school year, a crisis or celebration that sets you on a different course:
- Imagine your way into the new year by writing about yourself and your life as a fairytale: Once upon a time a woman/man stood at the snowy gate of January and asked a snowy owl, "which way shall I turn?" ...See where you go in imagination.
- Create a story that supports your New Year resolutions. If you want to exercise more, imagine the body image you are reclaiming and all you will be able to do. Or use your exercise time to enjoy story: read or listen to good books while on the treadmill.
- Take time to celebrate the family story: make a scrapbook of the year past and help each family member set plans for the year. You can write up goals and wishes on sticky notes and place them on the refrigerator door or tucked a month ahead on a family calendar, and keep telling each other the story of how your dreams progress.
When you're ready for a new future: start with a new story. Page by page, we set the map of our lives in place. Yes, I know it's busy! My quiet reflections of a few weeks ago seem far away, but ten, twenty minutes at a time I go to the blank page. Come, join me for a cup of tea and a few minutes of writing.
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