Writerly Wednesdays: Kay Keppler

Hello and welcome to my brand new feature, Writerly Wednesdays. Please welcome Kay Keppler!

New Year’s resolutions. They’re a good idea, at least in theory. The end of the year is a time to reflect, to evaluate--and to hope. To plan.

In practice, however, resolutions suck. I write mine on Dec. 31 and start to feel commitment slippage by Jan 4. Total abandonment usually arrives by mid-February, accompanied by feelings of inadequacy and failure.

I can think of worse things than failing to keep one’s resolutions. Root canals. Epidurals. Allergies to chocolate.

But New Year’s resolutions--those promises to yourself that you’ll lose weight, save more money, get more sleep, quit smoking--if ever there was a recipe for failure, Resolutions R It. I’ve spent way too many holidays staring down the old year with a jaded, gimlet eye; gazing at the new page in the calendar with a tender, moist look. The look that says, this time I’ll win, this year I’ll keep my resolutions--only, by mid-February, to have that look change to one of jaded failure. Again.

Last year around this time, I was uncharacteristically contented and confident. I could make resolutions! I could keep them! I would be a better person!

And the miracle was, I did make a resolution (just one, but it was big)--and I kept it! Knowing that “losing weight” was too vague and too unlikely to happen, I picked an easy resolution to make: I vowed to become a better person.

Simple! Just about anything would qualify. Eat some brussels sprouts? A better person! Take a walk? Better person! Clean out a closet? Better!  

All through 2011, I succeeded with my resolution. I phoned home. Wrote a thank-you note. Met a deadline. All good. I even went for an “annual” physical--an event so rare that my doctor calls me her “invisible friend.” And everything I did meant that I was succeeding in my New Year’s resolution.

This year, though, not so much. “Better person”--that’s so 2011. We’re barely into 2012, and I’m already late paying my bills. I’ve eaten too many simple carbs, and I haven’t cleaned my office. “Become a better person” isn’t cutting the mustard this year. I need specificity!

So far this January, I’m much more irresolute about my resolutions. I haven’t really settled on anything. But I fear that I’ll be following in Mark Twain’s footsteps. He said that New Year's Day was the accepted time to make resolutions. Next week, as usual, was the time to begin paving hell with them.

I wish you better luck--and way more resolve--with your goals for the New Year!

 

 Kay Keppler has written in several genres including manga, contemporary romance, and coming in April 2012, space opera. She lives in northern California where she writes and edits fiction and nonfiction and lives happily in a 100-year-old house that's had a few plumbing problems. Now, if the duct tape holds, everything will be perfect.  

With a Song in My Heart (or somewhere)

Oh you are in a for a treat today! Let me introduce the witty and talented Kay Keppler, author of Betting on Hope. Kay lives with me in California, but it's a big state and so we've never met in person. Maybe one day. Without further ado, here's the very talented Kay!

What am I thankful for? I wanted to write something profound. I’m so lucky in so many ways. I have great parents, a good education that I didn’t have to go into debt for. I have my health and my work. Friends and family.

And...blah, blah, blah. I’m thankful for those things, sure. Absolutely. But I wanted to be more specific.

I thought about my life. I watched the news. I wondered: What are our aspirations? Are we more thankful for things we work to get? Or things that are given to us? Or events we have no control over?

And you know what else I thought of? That song from the Sound of Music. You know the one I mean: Raindrops on roses. Right, that one.

I want to say up front I’ve never much liked this movie. It’s just too scrubbed for me. And I don’t much like that song, either, for the same reason. I’m more of a Stairway to Heaven Led Zeppelin kind of gal. But once I’d started to think about what I was thankful for, I just couldn’t get this song—My Favorite Things, the raindrops one—out of my head. All week long, it’s been running through my brain. And when you don’t much like the movie, and you don’t much like the song, well, it’s been a bad week for thankful. Not so much thankful now, no sir-ee.

But I kind of like old Maria’s take on life. She appreciated the small things (those dang raindrops). She lived in the moment (the doorbells). She liked color (the bright copper kettles) and bad weather (the raindrops, the snowflakes), and, of course, she was a sensualist, she liked presents (brown paper packages tied up with strings).

So with apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein, here are a few of my favorite things. A few things, among very many, that I’m thankful for.

Chocolate and cashews and ripe avocados

Wool socks and seeing the Dickeyville Grotto

Old dusty books with their spines torn apart

These are the things that are close to my heart.

Hard contact lenses and exit row seating

Tampons and Advil and pain that is fleeting

Comfortable shoes and adjustable chair

These are the things that I simply can’t spare.

Phone conversations with friends close and distant

Lunches and dinners with folks real insistent

Tax refunds after I file my forms late

These are the pleasures that never abate.

When life cheats me
And defeats me
Forget what makes me glad—

I drink down a shot of my favorite gin
And then I don’t feel so bad.