Try This At Home - Letter To Yourself
Late winter is the best time to plant seeds within yourself. That’s what I’ve decided to do. I’ve been nesting over the winter at home in Venice, working diligently on some personal projects that mean alot to me - building this blog, setting up my art studio, consciously taking better care of myself and getting organized - just to name a few. The Vernal Equinox, which is the herald of spring, falls on March 20 . . . so the bursting of new tree buds is just around the corner . . . another winter survived. (’Cept mine wasn’t so hard because I was mostly in SoCal - sorry to all my winter-weather-enduring peeps!)
And now that I’m about to ride off into the sunrise for a bit and venture away from what I’ve built here at home, it occurs to me that the least I could do is give myself a road map. Upon my return, I’ll be the same ole Anna, but slightly different - and some perspective will be nice. So, I’m going to write a letter to myself within the next couple of days, seal it up and tuck it away in my studio for later perusal. I urge you to undertake this experiment as well.
Now is the perfect time to sow the seeds for later in the year. I plan on reading my letter to my future self in November, which is the height of harvest time. There’s no right or wrong way to write a letter to yourself. Lay out your dreams, hopes and goals for the year. Shower yourself with love and affection. Decorate it, stow it on your altar, squirt it with perfume, put it in a plastic bag and bury it in your yard . . . whatever you want to do with it is fine. This is personal, and most importantly, should be a fun exercise! I’m going to begin my letter with “Dear Future-AnnaBananaFanna,” decorate it with something sparkly and/or strange and tuck it away in a very safe, non-disclosed place that makes my heart feel all mushy when I think of it.
So, right now - get to writing to your future self. And don’t forget to write down a date in your calendar to remember to read it later! Or you can just check back here in November. I’ll remind you to find your letter when I’m rediscovering my own.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I like this idea, but for me the timing needs to be inverted somewhat. “Winter-mindset-Therm” is not who should be the one sending letters to the far more positive, sunlight-fed “late-summer-Therm”. But a mid-January reading of “Ok, remember how awesome things are right now, and become pretty much every year? That’s coming up before too long, so buck up, sport!” will probably work out quite nicely.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:43 am
That won’t fuck up the space-time continuum? Because if anyone knows the answer to that question, it’s you!
February 11th, 2008 at 11:26 am
The way I have to see it, I have to be right about this; I was wrong about something this weekend, so my quota is used up for the month!
February 11th, 2008 at 11:55 am
I did this in high school for an english class…except our teacher had us all write our parents addresses on the envelopes and she then mailed them to us a year after we graduated…(she had asked us to write where we’d thought we’d be a year after graduation) it was a trip to receive the long forgotten about letter to myself…and none of my predictions were even mildly close to where I actually was in my life. strange but good.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
That’s one dedicated teacher . . . how cool to give you that experience!