Account for your days

“So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom” -Psalms 90:12

LedgerFlinging oneself into a new year is an easier jump if the past is accounted for, the ledger closed. I’ve written some 175,000 words on 37days this year. That’s a lot of periods, semi-colons, subjective cases and semi-annual partially plural separating conjective commas each week. I’ve held dear each piece of grammar I cannot diagram, despite Mrs. Harbison’s best efforts in the 7th grade.

Does word count approximate value? I don’t think so. But in re-reading this year’s 37days over the past few days as a way of leave-taking, some things have come clearer to me: what I was thinking and when and why, how my writing has changed, where I was distracted, when I stumbled and fell, when I needed to stop, and when I needed to start again. So I’ve done my own accounting of sorts, to close out this wild and precious year:

If the number of comments is any indication, these were the top posts of 2006, where “top” means something different to each of us, I imagine:

Forever hold your penguin dear

Say hi to Yaron

Open the mudroom door for Tycho

Give free hugs

Claim your A

Choose your seatmates wisely

Just wave

Eat on a door

Purge your portfolio

Become you

These were the most fun to write in 2006:

Wear pink glasses

Polish your mud balls

Carry a small grape

Name your pom-poms

Write some blues

Ride the train

Shave with Ockham’s razor

Dress up for Ed McMahon

Signal your turns

Blow bubbles

These were the hardest to write this year:

Unpack your boxes

Forever hold your penguin dear

Eat slowly and thank the chef

Open the mudroom door for Tycho

And since writers are creatures created wholly out of themes that emerge like patterns in some vast authorial legend (or was that Arthurian?), these posts in 2006 mentioned Billy Collins and someone should send them to him with my phone number, dear lord, must I beg?:

Live first, write later

Don’t export your best peaches

Carry a small grape

Be the camera

Don’t graduate

Find Miss Florence Painter

These mentioned Johnny Depp (I will gladly deliver them to him myself):

Carry a small grape

Be a Chinese take-out box

Live first, write later

Don’t export your best peaches

On the day we were born: A Play in Three Acts for Emma

Write some blues

Eat on a door

Become you

And, yes, these mentioned the fact that I lost my camera (had you heard?):

Be the camera

Find Miss Florence Painter

Take a long walk to China

Go low-tech and high-touch

Sit very, very still with Slumpy

Be conscious of your treasures

I don’t know what 2007 will bring or what form 37days will take in the coming days. I do know that the impulse behind it remains true, that it is the one thing in my life that I have done with absolute intention and direction and out of the purest of impulses as a gift for my daughters, and that I haven’t yet fulfilled its reason for being, though—like everything in life—its form may change over time.

I also know that Mr Collins and Mr Depp may continue to make cameo appearances. And perhaps, in a world so perfect we dare not imagine it, in a shining bright light so powerful that we must shield our eyes with those big wraparound plastic sunglasses that they give you at the eye doctor’s office after they enlarge your pupils to obscene proportions, those glasses that resemble eyewear of an aging and yet oddly taut Burt Reynolds…in such a world (dare I say it?), perhaps I’ll even find my beloved Canon Digital Elph PowerShot SD600 camera.

(Image from here)

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

9 comments to " Account for your days "
  • Do you mean to tell me that Johnny Depp has still not shown up on your doorstep, bearing an Elph and spouting Billy Collins? Well, it’s high time he did! Can’t wait to look back through all these posts…even just reading the titles brought smiles.

  • Lovely round up. And if I see Depp or Collins I’ll be sure to mention you. ;)

  • jylene

    i daresay you have been quite busy and productive this holiday season, given all the recent posts and the rereading you’ve been doing. forced R&R has been good for you, i think. now to find a way to incorporate a little downtime into daily life after you have recovered. that’s the real challenge for us all, isn’t it? i’ll keep reading, anxiously waiting to see what is next in your evolving process. you never fail to be interesting, engaging and relevant to my life! thanks—

  • Joy K.

    Thanks for the year in review!

    One of my favorite quotes is, “Where there is great love there are always Miracles.” May 2007 be the best year of your life, with appearances by J. Depp, B. Collins, and the return of your beloved Canon Digital Elph Powershot SD600 camera!!

  • Excellent posts… inspiring and in some instances thought provoking.. thank you for your open diary, a reminder to us all of the importance of life and the relationships you have…

  • Kim

    Patti,

    Thanks for sharing so much of yourself with us, and for your words of wisdom at *just* the right time.

    I contacted Johnny on your behalf, and here’s what he sent you:

    http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=23ef24f7d287ac448e7a481G07010212

    Happy, healthy, joy-full, color-full 2007!

    Kim

  • Elizabeth

    Yours is my favorite blog with or without Sirs Collins and Depp sprinkled throughout.

  • Patti, I am looking forward to reading about whatever 2007 brings to us all. Thank you! Happy new year!

  • Ah, Patti, so well done, dear…

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