Every January, the same message arrives from every direction: new year, new you. As if the person who got through last year, with all her small routines and hard-won habits, needed replacing.
What if she didn't?
Look at what you've already built
The café where they know your order. The walk home you prefer even though it's longer. The book on your nightstand, half read. The friend you call on Sundays. The way you take your coffee. That isn't a draft waiting to be fixed. It's a life, built slowly, and it's yours.
When I moved to Paris, I made myself one quiet promise: if I ever stop being amazed by this city, I'll leave. I'm still here. Not because everything is perfect, but because I keep adding small reasons to stay amazed.
Add, don't fix
Instead of a list of things to correct, make a short list of things to add. Small, beautiful, almost too easy:
- A postcard of a painting by the bathroom mirror, changed with each season.
- One museum room a month, not the whole museum. Here's why one room is enough.
- A letter a month, written or received.
- A beauty list instead of a gratitude list, filled on Sunday evenings.
- One new piece of music, listened to properly, start to finish.
Chardin knew
Jean Siméon Chardin built a career on small, ordinary moments taken completely seriously: a cup, a kitchen table, a young man blowing a soap bubble through a straw. Nothing happens in these paintings, and that's the point. He looked at everyday life as if it were already worth painting. Because it was.
Jean Siméon Chardin, Soap Bubbles, about 1733–1734 (Chardin painted several versions)
The year you already have
So this January, keep the old you. She's done a lot. Just bring her something beautiful, and keep bringing it.
Something that arrives without asking
"(letters) On Art" is one of those additions: a letter and a postcard on your doormat every month, and the seasonal printed issue of "(meditating) On Art". Made by a person, for you, without you having to choose it again each day.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi