These were the first words in my head this morning as I sat up in bed. I knew it was time to write, and it is the last day of the month. The last day of the first month of the year. We are 1/12 of the way through 2012, one egg less than a dozen. How much closer are we to our dreams?

New Years Resolutions aren’t big for me. I don’t see one day of the year as any more important for turning over a new leaf as any other. However, after all the hubbub of Christmas, in the quiet of winter, it just turns out to be a good time for reflection and goal setting.

My husband and I were talking about the things we wanted to do in 2012. This year we have some vacation time, which is a new phenomenon to us. We were planning how to take time this year to rejuvenate. He wants to go on a couple of motorcycle rides. We want to visit our grandkids. We want to go camping. And the thing that I wanted to do more than anything this year, was develop a better habit of writing, starting right away, to write every day.

At first I didn’t even have any other goal than to write consistently, dust off the cobwebs of my imagination and get to thinking again, thinking on paper. The thinking of beauty, capturing it in little snapshots of phrasing that sustains me. It is not quite poetry. Yet. It is warming up to poetry. The noticing things, the paying close attention to little things that move me, these are all exercises in awareness that will bring me closer to writing the poetry that is the thing in all this world that makes me well.

After less than a month of writing daily, I wrote the beginnings of a poem last weekend. One that made my heart swell. It is in the early stages and needs a lot of work, but the act of putting pen to paper in an actual journal, scrawling around the edges of the page, going up the edge and upside down around the top because the thought needed to continue without turning a page… the act of that.. the coming away from the table and knowing I’m onto something was more than enriching. It happened on the same morning we had a 360 degree sunrise – red blazing across every inch of our sky. It felt like a blessing, a benediction, a Go in Peace, Be Fruitful and Multiply!

A new goal was born. If poetry means so much to me, I am living in a self designed solitary confinement if I am not purusing and absorbing the poetry of others on a regular basis. And so, one trip to the Library later, and I have read all these great poets this week. At least one poem a day is a habit I intend to keep for the rest of my life. It brings me joy, it refreshes my spirit. It makes me a better mother, better capable of noticing the things my boys are doing and seeing the beauty, the childhood, the wonder and awe of it, instead of just the overbounciness and screechy of it.

Then, to really stretch myself, I added one more goal – to submit one of my many poems to a Journal. Just one submission a week. People who hear me read ask me if I’m published, and I always say no because it’s too hard. The truth is, I haven’t tried. It can be overwhelming, but what about life isn’t. Come on! So – one new submission a week.

What are some of the goals you are setting for yourself this year? You are one month in, one egg less than a dozen into your year. Are you getting closer?

On that note – we bought seeds for our garden over the weekend as well. Next weekend we will get to plant a few in the greenhouse for transplanting once it’s warmer. Oh so exciting!