Happy New Year 2018
I turn 53 years old in a couple of weeks. The first three years of this decade have been a period of adjustment, from making peace with fifty to evaluating the reality of friendship against its nuances and contradictions. It’s also been a time of the culmination of journeys that began weeks, months, years, even decades, in some ways a lifetime, ago. During these first days of the new year, I review the columns I’ve written from earlier Januarys in my life: from my writer’s window in Astoria, as snow blanketed the streets; from lonely city streets as I navigated a Greenwich Village that no longer exists but was never more beat than during those icy first days; from a hotel room at LAX as I accompanied my husband on his exploratory expedition that led to our new life in Los Angeles.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I do set goals every January. The time is just right for it – not only is it the common new year, it’s my personal one. Typical Capricorn, I set goals and then climb steadily towards them, step by step, rock by rock, achievement by achievement. Last year it was to rethink and reorganize our home office, including technology upgrades where indicated, in order to do the best with the work that emanates from there while maintaining the home office’s rightful place as the center of household business. I have always found that when my home environment is thrumming with effective systems, my mind clears, my focus sharpens, my capacities increase and my productivity follows. That’s as true of catching up on paperwork as it is of folding the laundry, doing the dishes, mopping the floors. That was a goal achieved, as we strengthened our home office systems and upgraded personal and work technology for what turned out to be a year of solidification on the home front.
One of this year’s goals is John’s and my best health. Thanks to other aspects of living, last year we fell behind in our exercise regimens while forging ahead in our eating and drinking. That’s not to say the plan will be to diet as if ascetics. On my birthday weekend, as is our tradition I will report to the Hitching Post for a thick steak smothered in Santa Maria salsa, a glass or two of house Pinot Noir, and a slab of chocolate birthday cake. And we won’t deprive ourselves of See’s Candy on Valentine’s Day, burgers and cucumber martinis at The Abbey during Pride Month, whatever feast John wants for his summer birthday, or good food and fellowship throughout the year, especially when holidays roll around on their inevitable cycle.
But on a daily and ongoing basis, we need to do better. I need to design better menus, not abandoning the food we love but not overindulging in it either. I need to reserve pasta as an occasional treat, not a go-to. That won’t be easy because we both love Puttanseca, Carbonara, penne alla vodka -- pretty much all noodles. But as we enter mid-life, both our cholesterol numbers and those on our waistbands are too high. It is time to see the doctor, talk to a nutritionist, break out the yoga mats, get back onto the tennis court, go hiking.
Some of us have an emotional connection to the food we love, and letting it go is a loss. But there are no plans to let go entirely. Evaluating our diet is a rethinking, a necessary and healthy process of addressing how we think and feel about food in order to do better with our eating. The reason I don’t like the word diet as a verb is that the first three letters refer to loss. I don’t want to lose a part of my life that brings me fulfillment, whether kitchen, dining room, or home bar. The visceral acts of cooking and eating are expressions of being alive. For John and myself, we must evaluate our diet, with professional guidance and making changes where warranted, without that being attended or propelled by the depressing thought that the good living part of our lives is behind us.
And perhaps the living can be as good inside the spa as in the steakhouse and the pasta hut. As I enter the new year trying to do my best, I am relearning about menu design. So far I have read and participated in some online discussion regarding clean-eating, Paleo, and reset diets. Of course, each has its own viewpoint – and, frankly, hard sell – but commerce notwithstanding, what they all have in common is a commitment to better health through more informed eating. Even as a lover of desserts, wine, and sauces, I can see that. While I wait to talk with whatever brave nutritionist will take on the conversation with me, my preliminary goals are to ease my indulgences in caffeine, alcohol, and sweets and be more physically active. These should not present the greatest of challenges as I live in Los Angeles, ground zero for the active lifestyle. In LA, we wear workout clothes as daywear.
John and I may be beyond the time in our lives when we went to the gym religiously and drank our breakfast as a nutrition shake, but we have relaxed into a sedentary lifestyle that is in congruent to our age and our location and that may be shortening our lifespan. There is still time to fix it, maybe even undo the worst of the damage. The new year teaches not just about new beginnings but renewal and recharge. After the celebrations and indulgences of the winter holidays, themselves the culmination of a year of living, the new year dawns clear and cold. As we settle into that hallowed stillness, we review times gone by, cherish the best and most important moments and do our best to make peace with the worst ones. Settled, clear-eyed, working up our courage and our determination, we renew our individual and mutual commitment to our future. Time itself will move us forward; we will try to do so for the better, lessons learned, indulgences enjoyed, obligations awaiting. If that’s not the essence of the new year, I don’t know what is.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I do set goals every January. The time is just right for it – not only is it the common new year, it’s my personal one. Typical Capricorn, I set goals and then climb steadily towards them, step by step, rock by rock, achievement by achievement. Last year it was to rethink and reorganize our home office, including technology upgrades where indicated, in order to do the best with the work that emanates from there while maintaining the home office’s rightful place as the center of household business. I have always found that when my home environment is thrumming with effective systems, my mind clears, my focus sharpens, my capacities increase and my productivity follows. That’s as true of catching up on paperwork as it is of folding the laundry, doing the dishes, mopping the floors. That was a goal achieved, as we strengthened our home office systems and upgraded personal and work technology for what turned out to be a year of solidification on the home front.
One of this year’s goals is John’s and my best health. Thanks to other aspects of living, last year we fell behind in our exercise regimens while forging ahead in our eating and drinking. That’s not to say the plan will be to diet as if ascetics. On my birthday weekend, as is our tradition I will report to the Hitching Post for a thick steak smothered in Santa Maria salsa, a glass or two of house Pinot Noir, and a slab of chocolate birthday cake. And we won’t deprive ourselves of See’s Candy on Valentine’s Day, burgers and cucumber martinis at The Abbey during Pride Month, whatever feast John wants for his summer birthday, or good food and fellowship throughout the year, especially when holidays roll around on their inevitable cycle.
But on a daily and ongoing basis, we need to do better. I need to design better menus, not abandoning the food we love but not overindulging in it either. I need to reserve pasta as an occasional treat, not a go-to. That won’t be easy because we both love Puttanseca, Carbonara, penne alla vodka -- pretty much all noodles. But as we enter mid-life, both our cholesterol numbers and those on our waistbands are too high. It is time to see the doctor, talk to a nutritionist, break out the yoga mats, get back onto the tennis court, go hiking.
Some of us have an emotional connection to the food we love, and letting it go is a loss. But there are no plans to let go entirely. Evaluating our diet is a rethinking, a necessary and healthy process of addressing how we think and feel about food in order to do better with our eating. The reason I don’t like the word diet as a verb is that the first three letters refer to loss. I don’t want to lose a part of my life that brings me fulfillment, whether kitchen, dining room, or home bar. The visceral acts of cooking and eating are expressions of being alive. For John and myself, we must evaluate our diet, with professional guidance and making changes where warranted, without that being attended or propelled by the depressing thought that the good living part of our lives is behind us.
And perhaps the living can be as good inside the spa as in the steakhouse and the pasta hut. As I enter the new year trying to do my best, I am relearning about menu design. So far I have read and participated in some online discussion regarding clean-eating, Paleo, and reset diets. Of course, each has its own viewpoint – and, frankly, hard sell – but commerce notwithstanding, what they all have in common is a commitment to better health through more informed eating. Even as a lover of desserts, wine, and sauces, I can see that. While I wait to talk with whatever brave nutritionist will take on the conversation with me, my preliminary goals are to ease my indulgences in caffeine, alcohol, and sweets and be more physically active. These should not present the greatest of challenges as I live in Los Angeles, ground zero for the active lifestyle. In LA, we wear workout clothes as daywear.
John and I may be beyond the time in our lives when we went to the gym religiously and drank our breakfast as a nutrition shake, but we have relaxed into a sedentary lifestyle that is in congruent to our age and our location and that may be shortening our lifespan. There is still time to fix it, maybe even undo the worst of the damage. The new year teaches not just about new beginnings but renewal and recharge. After the celebrations and indulgences of the winter holidays, themselves the culmination of a year of living, the new year dawns clear and cold. As we settle into that hallowed stillness, we review times gone by, cherish the best and most important moments and do our best to make peace with the worst ones. Settled, clear-eyed, working up our courage and our determination, we renew our individual and mutual commitment to our future. Time itself will move us forward; we will try to do so for the better, lessons learned, indulgences enjoyed, obligations awaiting. If that’s not the essence of the new year, I don’t know what is.
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