2005 Calendars

Today we have rain in a slow, steady drizzle. The sky is steel gray, the trees wet and shining, and the blue jay acts nervous about a small hawk or kestrel hanging out nearby. Our heater is on and the cat has camped out in front of it. This is the time of year I contemplate what calendars to purchase for the new year.

Last time around we waited until January, and in desperation picked up a free calendar at our local feed store. That was a departure from my usual process of ensuring I know what day it is. But while there are some things we can delay, and purchase of a calendar may be one of them, the purchase of cat and dog food isn’t. We would have a rebellion on our hands if we ran out. We once arrived home well after the usual dinner hour to find our two cats stalking our parakeet whose cage hung from a hook in the living room ceiling. The cats huddled in earnest consultation on the back of a nearby chair, certain they’d finally figured out why we kept a bird in a cage. It must be the emergency food supply. We arrived home in time to save him.

The illustrations in the feed store calendar were Norman Rockwell reproductions. I’m a great fan of Rockwell, in fact I have a book about him somewhere, but I’ve now seen most of his works so many times they’ve lost their freshness. Perhaps they didn’t seem fresh because we didn’t choose them. I’m usually more obsessive about selecting a calendar. A calendar should not feel stale. My calendar is something I look at everyday. It resides close to my workspace. It’s like a window on the world, a world of my choosing. It’s also a window on tomorrow, the place I do my planning. The view I see there is up to me, and I like that tiny bit of control over my life.

This year I started my annual search for the perfect calendar well ahead of time. I settled on one for our shared office and one for my writing corner in the living room. Then my sister returned from a trip to Tuscany, and gave me a mini-calendar she purchased in Cortona, Italy. That will go in the kitchen, where we have less free wall space. It contains some amazing scenery, including an appetizing field of sunflowers, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which I used to sometimes pronounce pizza when I was a girl.

The calendar for the shared office features Hudson River School Paintings. The one I chose for my writing corner is titled, Smith & Hawken: The Secret Garden and contains photographs of private, enclosed gardens. This is soothing stuff, it carries me away.

I’ve had trouble keeping to a schedule recently, so I needed a day book, but I didn’t want to go for a business planner, which would be too reminiscent of my hectic days as a manager. I chose instead an attractive weekly planner, A Woman’s Diary for 2005 with paintings by Susan Seddon Boulet. It’s spiral bound, with one of Boulet’s paintings for each week, as well as a weekly quote, space for a review of the past week and goals for the coming one, lunar phases, holidays, and daily mood prompts for brief daily journal entries. It doesn’t replace a full-on journal, which I keep in various ways, usually on simple yellow legal pads; but it’s perfect for keeping track of my few regular meetings, activities, and appointments, and it has a personal and unhurried feel to it. I can keep it on my desk or carry it with me.

So much for how I’ll mark my days and the turning of the new year. What’s in your calendar for 2005? How do you track your days? What do you see through your window on tomorrow?