We spent our New Year’s Eve with old friends (with a new baby) in Washington D.C., a city filled with so many memories since I lived in it eighteen years. We showed our own kids our old haunts, visited the renovated Portrait Gallery, and also caught a retrospective show of my beloved Joseph Cornell, which included an exhibit of his stacked supply boxes of shells, feathers, glitter, buttons, and junk–all the glorious clutter he kept on hand for his angelic collage projects! He found beauty in everything, and peace within chaos.

Alone later, in a consignment shop on Connecticut Avenue, I found a phenomenally beautiful 75-year-old Imari black bowl with a gold Buddha and golden-haloed meditating teachers all over it, which I’ve decided to send as a get-well gift to “Integral Spirituality” author Ken Wilber, who has been gravely ill in Colorado. When I walk into a thrift or consignment store and find just the right gift for somebody, I feel as though everything’s fallen into alignment; I’m finding the right home for something precious that’s fallen out of the right hands.

As I develop my own new year’s resolutions this week–something I’ve done every year since I was a young –I’m thinking it would make sense to accept more of myself, all of my selves, and not strive to change too much. Why slavishly contort yourself into a new shape, work harder, or try on a new mask? Isn’t it better to be grateful for the lessons presented by our faults? I did, however, find a good article written by University of Maryland psychologists about how to create and stick to realistic New Year’s goals. In addition to reminding folks not to aim too high or strive for perfection, the experts say it’s helpful to find goals with a spiritual dimension. Read more here.

What are your new year’s resolutions, and how do you keep them realistic?