Something Old, Something New, Something Timeless

I am not really making resolutions this year.  There is one goal I must concentrate on.
Graduating in 2011.

Ugh, I'm exhausted already. Big goals are one thing, but it's the little goals that make up everyday life. "I will get the bedding clean today," "I will sit down with my children and play a game after dinner," "I will call my mother."

Then there are the less concrete sorts of promises we make ourselves.  "I will eat healthier." "I will shop locally."

This year, I've done something already I said I'd never do.  I bought a pair of skinny jeans at the consignment shop where my girl Courtney scores the best finds.  And I wore them.  Out in public.  This was encouraged by two of my dear friends who I am fairly certain were not trying to play a sick joke on me.

I've also done something I have been wanting to do.  I finally bought a pair of boots.  Not snow boots.  Impractical boots, consigned of course.  I *heart* them. And now you don't have to hear about either of those things again, Happy New Year to you.

In a New Year's conversation we were having with Jeff's parents, he brought up a list of things he read that would become obsolete or have already become obsolete in this decade.  I was not too upset about most: the Yellow Pages has always seemed illogically constructed to me, and I have never personally received or sent a telegram.  But bookstores?

Yes, I am guilty of buying a few books from Amazon, enemy of bookstores.  But they were books I needed for a study or a gift, looking for the lowest price.  I have never browsed at Amazon.  Ever.

But bookstores, especially the local independent variety, are lovely places.  I love to waste afternoons at bookstores.  My children can always get me to loosen my tight fist in a bookstore.  I might even take them over to the attached cafe for a beverage after I buy them a new book.  I love the way new books smell.  I love to crack one open and sink into a soft chair with a blanket.  I love hard copy books.  Not reading them on electronic devices.  I love to turn the paper pages with my finger.  I love to hunt around shelves and read a few pages to see if I am enticed.  If bookstores and books in their physical, tangible form go away I will mourn them.  And I am tempted to resolve to patronize every beautiful bookstore in my wake this year.

In mentioning this item on the list, Jeff commented that books are like handwritten letters. "No one writes those anymore." And I smiled a victorious inward smile.  Because he is wrong.

I write handwritten letters.  And one of my dearest friends writes them to me.  We use pretty stationary and we anticipate one another's responses in the mail, even though we follow each other's blogs and post to each other's facebook walls.  There is something about the essence of writing that a handwritten letter captures that other modes do not.  As electronic communication will never completely take away those few tidbits of handwritten letters, neither will electronic devices rob my world of books as I know and love them.

The world changes, for better (my boots) or for worse (my skinny jeans?). The tide will flow whether I go along or resist. There will be trends I never adopt, and some I will embrace.  But some things, like flowers growing in personal garden spaces, will stay in the stubborn guard of hearts that cherish them whether they are practical or not.  Surely you fritter some of these things away in your own life? I'd love to hear about them.

Cheers to our timeless things!