I remember how I felt on the first day of school every year when I was a child. I had a sense of excitement and exhilaration about the newness of my book bag, pencil case, notebooks, and even my shoes. I still love to buy new notebooks of any size.
Enrolled in a Catholic school I was hopeful and nervous about which teacher I would have. Would it be Sister Maria Peccadillo or Sister Mary Exuberance or perhaps someone new?
Getting to see old friends and make new ones enhanced the excitement. There would be the unique experiences and challenges that come with a new, higher grade than last year. And I felt so grown up.
I was determined not to make the mistakes of the previous year, like when I stood through an entire part of the Mass while everyone else was kneeling. How embarrassing, especially when Sister Mary Caligula tugged on my skirt hem from the pew behind. I thought it was a classmate and slapped her hand away. I think I still hold the record for the number of “Hail Marys” said in a single minute.
That is what the New Year is like for me. I have great expectations for new experiences. I look forward to making new friends and sharing thoughts and dreams with old ones. I have a fresh chance with no mistakes yet. The New Year is like having a new notebook.
Many make resolutions for the New Year, and I am no different. I have resolved to be more like my mother. That woman amazes me. She is a dynamo, a little Italian ball of energy.
She visited over the holidays and each time I would say, “Mom, let me do that, sit down and relax,” she would exclaim, “I can’t just sit, Sweetheart, I’m not used to that!” She buzzed around the house helping with dishes, laundry, shopping, and going to Mass.
“You need to move it or lose it,” she says, and she’s right. This woman moves quickly for someone her age. I mean, that broad is a spry 39 (so she tells me)! God’s legions of angels can’t catch her and that’s why she stays so young and may live forever—at least I hope so!
My husband, The Brit, on the other hand, loves to stay fastened to his recliner sofa. The only time he moves is to get up and make tea, go to the loo after consuming the tea, or cheer and shout at the Arsenal Football Club on the “telly.”
I have resolved to kick his keister off the couch and into the gym with me. He is resolved to ignore me and stay put. Like Arsenal’s manager, Arsene Wenger, I have my strategies for attaining my goal.
I need to move more, too, and am looking forward to the indoor pool and facilities at the Pismo Beach Athletic Club. Mom paid my membership as an early birthday gift. I love to swim, but hate getting out of a heated pool into the ice-cold air. Now I can jump out into a warm whirlpool or steam room or sauna and soothe my aches away. I’ll wait awhile before trying anything more exerting. The last time I did that I hurt my fat!
I also look forward to connecting more with people on a personal level. Social media has, I feel, served only one purpose—to make us less sociable. People are so connected to their cellphones and other devices that they no longer connect on a person-to-person level. I despair when I see a family seated together in a restaurant, each absorbed in their cellphones and not speaking with each other.
Recently social media fueled frenzies at several shopping malls with false reports of gunfire. People ran helter-skelter, shoving and stepping on one another to escape from nothing. Fights broke out and riot police had to intervene.
We are failing to see each other as human beings. We used to communicate verbally in written letters and through spoken conversations. I have kept every letter my family members have sent me over the years. They have become touchstones to my past of shared and celebrated experiences.
This year I have decided to send written cards and letters to family and friends each month. I have relied too much on email, but never social media. I don’t even have a Facebook or Twitter account. I’d much rather talk face to face with people and read an actual book while listening to the birds twittering in my yard.
I also intend to volunteer some of my time to help a local cause achieve its goals. I have one in mind and am looking forward to doing something meaningful.
A quote, often attributed to Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa of Calcutta, reminds us that we cannot all do great things, but we can to do small things with great love. She did say, “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
She also said, “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” While many people are waiting for leaders to make America great again, they could pitch in to help make it happen, strength-to-strength and person-to-person.
This brings to mind the Sun and New Times, which are preparing a special volunteer issue for this month. Do grab a copy on Jan. 19 and check out the many programs and opportunities you can become involved in to help your community.
I look forward to it so that I may fill my new notebook and give you all a good report in December. I offer my best wishes to you all for 2017, and may your notebooks be filled with wonderful things!
Ariel Waterman bids a fond farewell to the Sun’s Editor Shelly Cone with warm hopes for a terrific future. Send her notebooks via Interim Managing Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2017.
