Between finals week, holidays, and a few prompts that I’d rather think about in private than blog about, it’s been a while since I posted in response to a Reverb prompt.
Here, then, are brief responses to a few that tickled my fancy:
11 Things.
What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?
(Author: Sam Davidson)
I can’t think of eleven. Here are three, and their solutions:
- A messy desk: a place to put the paper detritus that I have to keep but resist filing (receipts!).
- Toxic non-conversations about nothing in particular: grounding myself before I speak or respond.
- Internet hangover: keeping track of the time I spend browsing my RSS feeds. More time walking, reading books, or drawing with my 5-year-old.
Appreciate.
What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?
(Author: Victoria Klein)
I’ve come to once again deeply value reflective silence and solitude. There have been periods in my life when I’m more introverted than extroverted, and this apparently is one of those moments. I appreciate, therefore, that I find myself in a situation where I have the time and space to reflect on my work and my greater pursuits. It’s also not surprising, then, that I value my own autonomy, and especially appreciate that being a professor allows me to pursue my own ideas and projects while remaining part of a larger community of people who value the life of the mind.
I express gratitude for these things by recognizing them for the gifts they are, and not taking them for granted.
New Name.
Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?
(Author: Becca Wilcott)
I’ve been thinking about this question quite a bit lately. My sister is pregnant with what appears to be a baby girl, and she and her husband have decided on a name but aren’t sharing it, so lots of possible names have been floating through my head with no place to land–and because I’m an historian, many of them are names from the mid-nineteenth through early twentieth centuries. I also have been attending a Friends (Quaker) meeting, and there’s a woman there with a most extraordinary and fitting name; because it’s so distinctive, I won’t share it here because I don’t want to infringe on her privacy. I will say her name is a compound word, each part of which is lovely in sound and connotation.
I suppose if I had a day to be someone else, I’d be Jane Historymaker–but not because I want to “make history” in the sense of doing something that is worthy of being recorded in history textbooks, but because I enjoy imagining new ways that laypeople might learn about, share, and interact with the history of their community. I like making projects about history, and talking about how to get the public involved with history.
And you?
What name would you choose? What do you hope to shed this year? And what have you come to appreciate?
Photo by Louise Docker, and used under a Creative Commons license.
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