For many years, as the holiday season wrapped up, my writing group would get together and verbalize our individual intentions as they pertained to our creative projects. You know: I resolve to finish my novel and find an agent. Or: I resolve to submit one short story a month. That kind of thing. As much as I enjoyed the practice of concretizing intentions, this year feels different. Feels like it’s asking for a bigger effort. A paradigm shift.

2018 was rough on so many of us in the tender heart population, as we witnessed the daily subjugation of goodness in favor of greed, racism, misogyny and hate. Each morning I’d reach over and consult the techno-box next to my pillow to see if there’d been a school shooting, or if Trump had appointed yet another Nazi, fearful of what I might find, and yet rubbernecking just the same. Marching, and tweeting and contributing and voting—none of the typical civic exercises seemed to put a dent in the downward spiral. Until November.

November, 2018 heralded the first glimmer of hope in two years. This week, my heart lifted in something close to joy with the swearing in of the 116th congress. The beauty, texture and humanity of our power-washed House with all of its diversity and freshness made me feel like dancing. (Also, that 10-year-old AOC Lisztomania joy vid was the perfect adjunct, so thanks, asshole dude who dug it up and spliced it expecting to cause a stir!)

Still, though, there’s much work to do to reverse the course and build momentum for a future of kindness to the earth, to our fellow citizens, to fair and equitable treatment of women. So, where do we go now? And how do resolutions fit in to the plan?

I’ve given this a lot of thought. 2019 is special to me for many reasons, but topping the list is it’s the 30th anniversary of my move to Portland. And to honor that single, most important decision I made back when I was still in my twenties, I’ve come up with twelve themes I plan to explore this year. Twelve components that speak to the joy I hope to grow as I move through the year. I’m thinking of them less as resolutions or intentions and more like the gestation of sustainable joy. Because, the longer I live, the more I see the connection between joy-building and humanitarian momentum.

So, in alphabetical particular order (because, hey, I’m a word person), here they are:

Adventure – Doesn’t have to be big. Adventure can be walking down a new road or trail for the first time. Anything that rattles the curiosity muscle, or makes you a little afraid.

Attention – Multi-tasking to get housework and chores done works well for me. But as a way of life it’s a spirit killer. More and more, split attention causes the feeling that whatever you’re doing, you should be doing something else. For me, social media has become that once two-way-street friend who’s turned into a bottomless pit of need. Am I going to quit IG, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest? Nope. But I’m determined to find a balance that feels authentic and thoughtful. When I’m working (whether on my project or someone else’s), I’d like to be immersed in the land of story and character without checking to see if I got my steps in yet, or whether that Amazon item is on its way, or whether Trump’s fired yet another cabinet appointee.

Beauty – I never realized how important beauty was to me until this year. If that sounds shallow, let me elaborate. When I speak of “beauty,” what I mean is a balance in form, color, texture and uniqueness. In the realm of writing, beauty is a combination clarity and particularity. A sentence that arises from authenticity. A rejection of received text. The evocation of a miracle. In landscape, beauty grows from the audacity of nature to perpetuate life in the face of chaos. Objects that are beautiful defy the oppression of sameness.

This year, we purged a junk-ridden storage room and, with the help of a couple professionals, turned it into a cozy, colorful and spacious bedroom. We also transformed an ugly toilet/laundry room into a clean, bright uniquely tiled bathroom. Beauty is transformation. It’s dynamic. It’s an assemblage of elements that work together to soothe, excite or awaken the senses. I crave beauty the way some crave sunshine. Instead of seasonal affective disorder my depressive moments come when I choose not to seek beauty. The good news is, beauty is all around. Just ask the wise and lovely beauty-hunting goddess, Jen Pastiloff.

Bodylove – Moving is good. Flexibility is good. Strength, energy, health. But, I’m a woman. So, if my body is Congress, my head is constantly voting it in and out of favor. How to stop that? What is bodylove, exactly? I’m working on this. More answers soon (I hope).

Commitment – The joy that comes from working diligently enough to arrive at a “done” thing is a particularly satisfying type of joy. That said, dogged commitment sometimes leads to blinders-on workaholism, which is very un-joyous. The challenge with commitment is to develop a specific intuition that compels us to (to quote lovely Lidia Yuknavitch), make art in the face of fuck without turning ourselves into single-focus machinery. Which brings me to …

Fun – The other night a friend of ours spontaneously invited us to “trivia night” at a local pub. I suck at trivia. But it sounded sort of cool, and Kirk is really good at trivia, so we went, and we laughed, and we did really well at first. And then we flamed out. C’est la vie. Fun gets harder to build in as we adult ourselves through the slog of middle age. Everything seems to be breaking all the time, so how do we have the nerve to pause amid the anxiety of deconstruction and dance? Or even visit a tavern on 50¢ wing night and throw caution to the wind—even on a school night? This question is particularly vexing. I’m determined to squeeze joy from it.

Humanity – Eye contact with strangers makes me super uncomfortable. But interactions where there’s an energy exchange mitigates the discomfort and often results in shared joy, even if only for a minute. In 2018 I contributed to at least a dozen GoFundMe campaigns, and yet, with each contribution I felt a measure of grief for the person’s situation. I felt that I hadn’t done enough to reverse the hardship. Money is easy. Really. But time. The investment of time when a person or community is in crisis—that’s a truer form of giving. This year, I pledge to move in the direction of offering more human exchanges in the form of empathy and active listening.

Nourishment – It seems that every week there’s a new food item I need to cross off the list. Tummy troubles have plagued me in some form since childhood. Wheat, onions, legumes, dairy—so many categories now on the caution list. And I’m not talking fads or dieting. I’m talking about a rebellion between my body and the variety of foods I feed it. A 57-year-old female body is a troublesome thing. It apparently requires low calorie, high-density nutrition on the reg to keep it functioning. Like, at all. Which sucks because eating is joy. Eating tasty, mouth-pleasing, sweet, salty, savory foods with impunity–that, my friends is joy. But the plop-plop-fizz-fizz reality – not so much joy. What to do? It’s a work in progress that possibly has no real solution. Deprivation doesn’t work. Fasting is the enemy of metabolism. Nutritious whole foods are time-consuming to prepare. I’ve tried the whole subscription meals thing and found it less than Hello or Fresh. Maybe the nourishment-joy relationship is super subtle and must be approached on a micro level and in combination with other items on the joy list. Eating the season’s first blueberries on a sunny patio, for instance. Or thinking in terms of tasting rather than eating because digestion gets sluggish with age. Oh joy. Really. Off I go to buy a One Pot because new kitchen gadgets are always fun. I will report back.

Partnership – File this one under love, compromise, growth and stability. Ten years of marriage to husband number three, and I’m pretty sure this one will stick until the end of time. One thing I know for sure is, marriage doesn’t start out in partnership, it grows into it. Part of that growth happens as the result of conflict, and some of it is the result of finding solace in the small things that tie two people together and figuring out how to problem solve as a team. I’m an autonomous creature, and I like my solo forays to cafés and matinees—however, big picture: I’d go crazy without my dude. Like, cat-lady crazy.

Sprightliness – is fun mixed with mischief and vigor. There’s a terrific relationship between vigorous mischief and joy. I’ve been watching this Instagram account for a while (even the name, silverdisobedience speaks to me), for inspiration on what sprightly aging looks like. More of this in 2019!

Stewardship – This year, I vow to not buy any food that is packaged in plastic clamshell. I mean, China finally put the kybosh to sorting all of our filthy detritus, and who can blame them? We have to be better consumers. Smarter. More thoughtful. Cloth bags in the car. Reusing containers. It’s hard because Mama loves her convenience, but seriously, folks, this planet is inflamed and sick. Think before adding another plastic Starbucks lid to the pile.

Whimsy – This final component of joy is a mish-mash of things. Different than “fun” and “sprightliness,” whimsy reaches into the imagination and, I think, it’s the source of joy on the page. Whimsy invites the artist to leave the normative swamp, whether diving beneath it, or hovering above, it’s the rabbit hole of delight. The reason why I write.

Tune in next week, when I chat more about January’s focus: Beauty.