A Winter Promise

It's a cold fresh day in January. Outside my windows, snow covered Alps bathed in sunshine stand against a glorious azure sky. If you're in the southern hemisphere, the latter half of the sentence applies. If you are in England, the garden is drenched in rain. The Christmas pudding sits stodgily in your belly, the tangy taste of Tanqueray and tonic is faint on your tongue. You feel reflective.

This time of year it is customary to make New Year Resolutions and equally predictably break them as the year passes. There is no earthly reason not to make promises at any other time of the year – they are equally valid I’m sure. But it’s something about a whole year before us, a brand new section of time in our Gregorian calendar that spurs us on to make a promise to ourselves to achieve special goals. I am reminded of crisp new exercise books at the beginning of a school year (which in my days was January), of pages that stuck until gently teased open to reveal a white sheet, unwritten, quivering with excitement at what that first word would be. Quite prosaically it was the first day of term. 

Imagine then, without a date - what would your first written word be this year? Creatively. I don’t count endless Facebook entries which would have inevitably started with ‘Happy’ New Year. I want to use a fabulously enriching word – Serendipity, Epiphany, Gossamer, Elixir (in my case a shot of Bailey’s)

And yet, Happy is not a bad choice at all. Why not start the New Year wishing happiness to all?

Happy - A good solid word. Unimaginative. Succinct. Selfless. 

In our selfie taking days it feels good to turn the focus on others. So I wish everybody a Happy New Year and mean it from the bottom of my heart. 

Here, again, I have a problem. Why bottom of the heart and not brain when it’s the brain that encases our emotions? Who decided the heart must be delegated to be the receptacle of love – beating away our time on this earth? If you google it, I’m sure you’ll find all sorts of theories but I’m not going to. This year my goal is to spend less time less googling and more time thinking and figuring it out.* 

So here are my resolutions for 2015:-

1.      Publish my book - Under the Pipal Tree (set in India, it’s a tale of identity)

2.      Progress with my new writing blog –Soliloquy (Link and snippets of my novels to follow)

3.      Finish my next novel – No Missed Calls (Psychological thriller. Anyone know a murdering psychopath I could interview? Seriously. Email)

4.      Google less (see above)*

5.      Wish for World Peace (sounding like a Beauty Queen)

Peace and love to all inhabitants of this earth - except the ones who are trying to destroy it.

PS: Leave any good words in the English language you know and love in the Comments box.