The Blue Thing
what I did this week vs. what I resolved to do
There’s an interesting section in the book I’ve been reading, Fresh, Green Life by Sebastian Castillo:
For several years, I have been in the habit of drafting a massive list—a master list of life—that one might call “New Year’s resolutions.” Often, I’ve heard these resolutions are de facto acts of bad faith: if one wanted to change something in their habits or behavior, in how they comported themselves in their day-to-day living, one should do so immediately, without hesitation. If one is in the habit of saying, “Tomorrow, I will,” one might as well say, “Tomorrow, I won’t,” or “Tomorrow, I will, but the day after, I won’t,” for resolutions are things to be taken immediately, in the present moment, when one can exercise imminent control. One has no control of what emerges in the future, and the same course can be said for what has already passed: a truth verging on the bromidic. So a New Year’s resolution in this sense can only be taken as the worst form of this weak, mental plea. One doesn’t want to actually speak French when they write “Learn French” on their resolution list—they want to be the sort of person who already speaks French.
(Castillo, 58)
I didn’t write “learn French” on my New Year’s resolutions this year, because I was taught in middle school how rotten of a goal that really is—it’s too broad, it’s not actionable, I would have no way of knowing when I’d actually achieved it. When would I be allowed to check that off, when I can have a conversation? When I know one hundred vocabulary words? When I’m fluent?
I did write a lot of other stuff though. Among them many things I’m putting off, or not as far along on as I thought I would be by May.
Most prominently in my mind, the socks. At the beginning of the year I made a bingo board with all my goals:
One of the goals, as you can see, was to knit a pair of socks. I have learned to knit. I have knitted many other things, a scarf, a bonnet. I’ve even knitted one, singular sock. But not a match. The second sock is in my bag, in progress, with only the cuff done. But all week I’ve been knitting the blue thing instead.
Here’s what else I’ve been up to this week instead of knitting the other sock:
sitting in the water garden watching birds
observing a moon made of butter
making this playlist
taking a selfie in Madi’s car
And maybe Castillo has a point, because its May, and the only resolution I’ve actually achieved so far is bake a beautiful cake.
This idea that a resolution is a representation of a person we want to have already been, and not someone we aspire to be, is not new to me. Once, for my birthday, I asked for a pet scorpion, and my brother said, “Ellery doesn’t actually want to have a pet scorpion. She wants to be the sort of person who has a pet scorpion.”
We choose hobbies, qualities, and qualifiers for the life we think we ought to have. I think I ought to be the sort of person who reads 50 books per year. I ought to be the sort of person who hosts dinner parties, and finds the time to go to the spa.
Right now, I think I ought to be the sort of person who finishes making my socks. But instead, as an act of defiance against the idea of the resolution itself, I’ll knit the blue thing.