That’s a wrap! 2023 done, 2024 started, and my standard desire to reach back and reflect. So, to a world where blogs are dead, I sail forth. 😀 I am going to break this up over a few days, just to give myself the time to really stretch and think.
As ever, I’ll use an old prompt that was published years ago, but that I like using at the new year. (Also, disclaimer, my computer isn’t letting me upload new photos? I’ll try to fix that).
- What advice would you have given yourself on January 1, 2023?
Probably: new growth is coming, keep your hands open.
Something that I really had to lean into this year I would describe like this–“faith” and “risk” are on two sides of the same coin.
I played with a lot of new things this year. In March, some friends and I hosted a Women’s Conference. We planned for months and, days before, the weather report hit: massive blizzard. Oh no! What now? But, we perservered and…there were a lot of graces from that event. Including, at post-conference tacos, my friend Beth and I decided to join forces for a fun Camino in Portugal in the fall! Plus my cousin, at the event, decided to walk the Camino! Whoa!
That Portuguese Camino ended up being for TWENTY-FOUR pilgrims, which is preposterous and wild and large, but it happened!
2. Describe your year in three words.
“The water settled.”
I would add two more words, “a little.”
I’ve had some tumulteous years. I went through a lot of job changes. COVID. Major relationship highs and lows. But, this year, my job stayed steady. In October I hit the two-year mark at this place, actually, and I remember telling my therapist: “Wow, it feels like I can let my shoulder tension go a little. I feel like I can un-hunch. Maybe, just maybe, this place is working out.” It feels good to have that happen. It feels good to have some stability. Water is still water. It can get un-settled in a moment. But, as it does settle…that ain’t bad.
3. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
On my way to Portugal, where we would all meet up, in Fatima, I sat on a small bus next to a fellow pilgrim. We both drifted into a sunny nap, tired from the travel and the time change.
At a certain point, though, I woke up. And I saw the eucalyptus forest, all there around me. Of course there was a global pandemic between me and the last time I was in a eucalyptus forest for the Camino. There was also an entire long-term relationship. But…I was back. God called me back.
And I thought this to myself: “This magic is *mine*.” E.g. it didn’t belong to someone else. No one gave it to me. The magic was mine. Not a different pilgrim’s. Not my ex-boyfriend’s. Not anyone else I walked with before. I was the one taking more people on the Camino. I was back. The magic was in me, the whole time.
4. What single achievement are you most proud of?
I mean twenty-four people for two weeks with everyone walking 150+ miles and no one dying is huge. Plus there was a fifty-year age gap. And, thanks be to God, everyone got along and was nice to each other and stuff. I feel blessed to have brought the experience to these folks.
I also tried to get mushroom-forager certified AND DID NOT BECAUSE I DIDN’T KNOW ENOUGH LATIN, so there’s that. Just to balance out my accomplishments.
5. What good thing happened to you that has never happened before?
*Flips through photos trying to find something spectacular.*
Well, a FUN one is that, on April 15th, I was riding bikes with my pal Mark. It was a stunning day: blue skies, happy red-winged black-birds, and I was like, “Mark! I am in love with this day! I am going to have a picnic! I am going to have ONE HUNDRED PICNICS THIS YEAR!”
And he said to me, “Danielle, you can’t have one hundred picnics in a year.”
…but if that didn’t make me want to TRY, by golly. One year, one hundred picnics. It’s January 5, 2024, and I’ve had 87 picnics, from last April 15th until now. I have a few months, and I think I’ll do it. I keep a dumb Google doc, and I add to it every time. I plan on printing it and mailing it to Mark come April.
Honestly, it’s been super fun. It’s kind of a dumb goal, but everyone has been really excited about it. They’ve been like, “Should we have a picnic? Right now?” and “Does this count as a picnic?” and “Can I help with the picnics?”
I’ve learned that: there’s no such thing as a bad picnic. And: people find a lot of delight in sharing with each other…and I do, too!
6. If your life this year was made into a film, what genre would it be?
Some dumb, cutesy, weird hipster film with a very shallow story arch. Nothing is too wild, just a lot of picnics, some sewing, some dancing. It’s a little slow-paced but…that’s okay.
7. Recount 3 of the best compliments you received this year.
Please read this in an Irish brogue: “You’re a good group leader, Danielle, they’re lucky to haff ya.”
Spoken to me by Connor, a young Irishman on the Camino, who ended up in an albergue on the top of a mountain with my group in Santa Lucia, right off of the blessed ocean. It had been a long, long day for me and, at the very end, some lines got mixed and some girls in my group FREAKED OUT that a stranger (and a man!) was in their 8-person hostel room. (They were still young to the Camino, all.) So I was like, “It’s chill, dude, let’s be bunk-neighbors,” and for the three minutes of evening before we fell asleep, we talked about our families (both of us have three brothers!) and our jobs (both in Marketing!) and then, in the morning, he gave me this compliment.
Thanks, Connor. Buen Camino, dude.
8. Describe the favorite place you visited.
Every place is a beautiful place. The Camino is sacred, of course. But, I also have developed a distinct crush on the Au Sable River, north of me in Michigan. It’s beautiful and clear and teaming and lively. I’ve visited it a handful of times this summer, each time falling more deeply and deeply and deeply in love.
Man, it makes me want to text my friends, “Want to see the River?”
Seashell Nell 