My ONLY goal for 2025 is: "stuff my creative life as full as I can of JOY and PLAY." I am here to report that this is turning out to be an excellent goal indeed! I mean, what's not to like about JOY? PLAY is a bit more challenging for me; I'm so product-oriented that play has often seemed, I hate to say it (so I'm lowering my voice to a whisper), a waste of time. But I'm opening myself to play as well (appropriately, as my WORD for the year is "openness").
So: I have been doing my best to slip out of bed every morning at 4:30 to have a full hour of writing on my work-in-progress for young readers, which I call my "hour of bliss." Bliss was already provided by the standard elements of my writing routine: my trusty hourglass, my favorite pen and pad of paper, Swiss Miss hot chocolate or tea in a teapot (kept warm with a Liberty of London tea cozy from a long-ago trip to England).
But for this to count as a year of joy, EXTRA joy needed to be added, right? I found two FABULOUS additional joy-suppliers.
We turn off the heat at night in our cottage, so it is downright chilly in the morning when I creep upstairs to the writing nook. So . . . TA-DAH!
I seldom buy anything new; most of my clothes come from Goodwill. This luxurious, soft, plush, warm, pretty L.L Bean bathrobe is an enormous treat. How cozy and comfy I am now as I write!
The second new joy-supplier is even more fabulous. I am a passionate fan of the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace, a series of books published mid-twentieth century, based on the author's childhood in Mankato, Minnesota (Deep Valley in the books) at the turn of the last century. In my favorite of the books, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, the four friends are going Christmas shopping, where their dimes (!) will ultimately be spent on Christmas ornaments, but along the way they pretend-shop for all kinds of other possible things. In the drug store, they "sniff assiduously" at the perfume counter and then each choose a fragrance: rose, lilac, violent, and new-mown hay,
Well, the Betsy-Tacy Society found a candle-maker to create candles in all four fragrances! And I bought them! And they are beyond adorable! Now I burn one each morning during my special, sacred writing time.
The writing on my book is going reasonably well, and I did try my hand at a draft of a personal essay which I kind of like, and I have a date this afternoon to brainstorm ideas for the picture book I want to write with my younger son's soon-to-be bride. So these are sources of joy and play, too.
But, dear writer friends, consider splurging on a new bathrobe! And literary scented candles! I am hugging myself every day with happiness because of mine.
