My Autumn Manifesto 2013 is different from My Summer Manifesto 2013.
I made a very long list for my Summer Manifesto this year, knowing that it would be impossible to achieve everything on it. My Summer Manifesto was an ode to happiness and potential. It was more about collecting ideas than achieving every one of them. It was also a push to do more, embrace more life, to see the world through the filter of wonderful potential experience. A filter like that is like having your own benevolent spirit guide leading you into happiness.
I taped the Summer list on the side of a bookcase right outside my remarkably small kitchen. The stuff that I did, I checked off . I feel great about what I did and not at all bad about what was left to do. Well, except for one thing. I really wanted to host/participate-in-making-happen an outdoor movie. Incredibly impractical. Have I mentioned that I live in a city? I wanted to hang up that sheet or find that blank outdoor wall, have technology magically cooperate, and show something fun. I was thinking Swing Time, and some among us wanted Toy Story 2. A double feature in the backyard of my cousin-in-law was in the air.
It didn’t happen. And that brings up perfectionism. Sometimes, list stuff happens, but not exactly as we envisioned. For example, that outdoor movie actually did happen. The City Park’s Department showed Finding Nemo outdoors in Carl Schurz Park on a beautiful starry night at the end of July.
“Finding Nemo” at Carl Schurz Park on July 29, 2013, ©WendyJournalista
I should have checked “Outdoor Movie” off of my list, but I have not. There are reasons why (I didn’t see the whole movie that night chief among them), but I am rethinking perfectionism. Hit the ball squarely where you want it to land – which may not be as common as one would like, or find the joy in the happenstance?
Enter my Autumn Manifesto 2013.
My Autumn Manifesto is much shorter. It contains not every possibility, just the essence of the celebration that is autumn.
What’s on your list?
WendyJournalista 