365 days ago, I started a project where I did a drawing every day.
It is startling to look back and see how much just that little project has changed me over the course of this handful of days. I am a much more experienced artist now than I was 365 days ago.
Also this year I think I have put more miles on my legs than any other year of my life since high school.
These are just two little accomplishments that help me to gauge what I have done this year. I guess, being able to put a number to it helps me see the progress easier.
Even when there isn’t an easy number one can use to assess progress, it is happening anyways. I’ve learned and grown in many ways this year, in areas where numerical statistics don’t really apply.
What I am really trying to say here is that Time happens. Days pass.
What things sort of things did you do these past 365 days? What do you have planned for the next 365?
15 Responses
I updated my main blog every day by posting, at a minimum, one photo taken that day and one poem written that day. Every Friday I posted a photo of a cat for a series known as “Cat Friday.” Every Friday my dearest friend, Robyn, and I exchanged photos and poems and added them to our joint blog, 113o miles: http://1130miles.blogspot.com/ which is the distance between our two homes. I also got rid of lots of paper, magazines, clothing and other clutter, thanks to my dearest friend, Georgia; we set various challenges for each other. Hardest? t-shirts, because they each seem to be attached to a memory; nevertheless my stack of t-shirts is smaller (though not by much). Attended Mass with my husband, although there were times toward the end of the year, when I couldn’t bear to go despite the kindness, wisdom, and intellectual rigor of the priests and the happiness it gave my husband.
I’m going to try to do a better job of recording my life. That probably means posting more on my personal blog. Studying with Claudia Bushman has hammered home the idea that one of the best things we can do in life is to write our truth, write our experiences.
G inspired me to start a Clean365 http://excellingatmediocrity.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/clean365-day-1/
I’ll update via twitter and blog daily (I hope). Wish me luck .
EBrown~ oh, I love that! you write a poem every day? ah that makes me so happy!
Caroline~ very much looking forward to that :)
mfranti~ I will be trying very hard to follow in your Clean365 footsteps :D
I’ve been trying to think what I could possibly do every day for the next 365 that won’t make me crazy or feel trapped by the inevitable passing.
I like the idea of writing a poem a day. I got a book on writing and reading poetry for Christmas, and practice seems conducive to improvement just as any other art, so maybe that’s what I’ll do. My ever present sense of perfection haunts me though. What do you do if you miss a day?! :)
cc, i’d just do two clean projects if i missed a day, but i don’t think poems are as easy to crank out as a dusting project.
I ‘ve been thinking of that exact same thing too- what can I do that I won’t feel oppressed by, and what if I miss a day? The thing I wanted to do was get up an hour earlier (7am, instead of 8am), and use an hour later in the day for things I’ve been neglecting. However, getting up early isn’t something you can really ‘make up’ later if you miss a day- which worried me. Finally I decided that if it comes to that the perfectionist in me should learn to cope.
Holy smokes, Starfoxy, getting up an hour earlier would be a monumental task for me. One that I wouldn’t particularly like.
If it makes a difference, I won’t be really waking up earlier, just gettingup earlier. Laying in bed pretending to sleep for more than an hour (something I’ve been doing) doesn’t seem like the best use of time.
no, Starfoxy, it sounds like a wonderful use time. Mornings are cold and beds are warm.
yes. what starfoxy just said. (::Grimiace:: getting up earlier is a goal I am ALWAYS setting and always breaking :-/ Good luck with that!)
corktree, i LOVE the idea of a poem a day (h/t to you EBrown). (I’ve had similar thoughts about doing some sort of writing each day, etc but haven’t put that to any real resolution).
what do you do when you miss a day~ DON’T STRESS IT. I missed days. I eventually made up the missed days by doubling up on other days… but seriously, DON’T STRESS IT. I think that is what will kill a goal like this early on is a feeling of “ah, I blew it.”
Also, don’t hold yourself to trying to write an epic every day. A three-line haiku or (Since I just saw you on twitter) a 140 character poetic tweet, etc, totally count.
some people hold themselves to a brief time-limit for their 365 projects (20 to 60 mins seems a common one). Some days I spent hours on a drawing (because I was really into it, and/or was avoiding something else :P), some days maybe 5 minutes.
Good luck, can’t wait to see :)
G, I’ve been looking through all your drawings since last night, leisurely pausing when I like. What a powerful body of work. Nicely done :)
I don’t know what I want to do every day this year, or if I want to make it more “official” by saying it’s a blank365. But I would like to. I’m just not feeling inspired yet. But I’d like to think that I do something meaningful every day when I see my children’s humanity (something that is easy to lose in the sea of meals, clothes, toys, tantrums and eye-rolling). Maybe that’s my inspiration right there. I will have a moment of meditation every day, something I am slightly in the habit of, but would like to really solidify and brighten in my life, both daily and long term. I might even tweet it #meditation365 and copy your process :D
thanks K <3
{Ironically, I didn't mean for this to become an official 365 goal setting post, though I am loving the ideas everyone is coming up with.}
A lot of what we do and how we grow isn't in easily measured and numerically ordered increments. It's hard to put a check mark by, for example, “practicing patience each day”. And realisitcally speaking, it is THOSE kinds of immeasurable acts and efforts that really alter the courses of our lives.
Discipline has a bad reputation in our culture. Discipline and its close ally disciple really mean to learn, to follow, to study. Discipline, as I practice it is practice over time. It is part of my spirituality of imperfection; inherent in the notion of repeated action is an understanding that the product of that action, and I, are always in a continuing process of becoming. Sometimes the practice is all there is; at other times it can be a vehicle for bliss, wisdom, beauty, love. I know (have learned) that I have to have a daily practice of some kind in order to get on with it. I can’t be a poet unless I write poetry. I can’t be a photographer unless I take pictures. “Do or do not. There is no try.”