First Year Seminar
Dear Friends,
I hadn’t planned to write a letter this week, this cozy time between Christmas and the new year. The time when, in childhood, I’d pester my mother to take me outlet shopping with my Christmas money. I’d read a whole stack of books. I’d introduce cocoa into my morning and evening routines.
Many of these things haven’t changed.
What has changed, at my age (lol), is how much time I spend during this season in reflection. For the past several years, I’ve kept a record of what books I’ve read. In December I like to create a roundup on Instagram–what books were a disappointment, what books I loved, which book was my favorite.
For the past six years, I’ve also chosen one photograph from each month of the year to create a little retrospective of how the year progressed.
And now, I realize, I have another year of writing to look back upon–these letters to you–whatever was on my mind or about the mind as the year progressed.
The theme of an art therapy practice’s newsletter is, naturally, mental health and creativity, so it makes sense that I wrote a lot this year about the ways we think about ourselves. Why do your insides sometimes not match your outsides? Are you an order muppet or a chaos muppet? Are you ambitious? A serious person? Authentic enough? Kind of “a lot”? Normal at all?
On the creativity front, I wrote about unexpected seasons and creative projects. I embraced my identity as an “art auntie.” I considered passive creativity in a busy season. I learned how to weave! And I deepened my musical creative practice, both as a listener and as a teacher.
And because navel-gazing only takes us so far, I also wrote a lot about the ways we live in the world. Choosing delight. Looking for glimmers. Seeking stillness. Adapting. Absorbing the horrors of war and apocalypse and grief and illness.
As I revisited this year’s archive, I realized that my writing this year mirrored the “First Year Seminar” I took back at Mercer University my freshman year. FYS 101: Composing the Self. FYS 102: Engaging the World. It’s been 19 years since I set foot in those classes. Is there something about approaching that 20-year mark that’s made me need to revisit those themes?
For one, they’re topics we should never stop investigating. And for another, perhaps I find myself, at the end of 2023, experiencing the world like I did when I was a new college student. I’m approaching a new life phase (middle age, lorrrrrd), but things are going well enough, calm enough, that I’m open to new ways of thinking and being.
If 2022’s writing was a primer on how to cope, 2023’s newsletter moved up a rung on Maslow’s Hierarchy–I wasn’t just coping, but instead, choosing how to engage with life’s challenges. I had time and space for introspection. For connection. For new creative ventures.
I hope that this year for you, too, has been one of improved wellbeing. I know many have not been so lucky. Illness, loss, and tragedy abound on a micro and global scale. To ruin that Zora Neal Hurston “years that ask questions” quote, there are years that you coast and years you are in it.
If you’re in it this year, I hope that you’ve found this newsletter to be, as my college professor Dr. Gordon Johnston described it, “a pair of support hose for a person’s sanity.”
Thank you for being here. I have so enjoyed reading your replies and comments and feeling this community of readers grow deeper and wider.
For the end of the year and into the next, I hope you’ll take extra good care,
Dot
News & Updates
Start something new in 2024: a new pattern of caring for yourself. Whether you want to explore your past or consider your future, we are here to hold space for you in the new year.
Our team has immediate openings for daytime and evening sessions, ages 6 to adult:
Kristopher Forren, MA, ATR-P specializes in working with adults and older adults who are experiencing life transitions that bring feelings of depression, anxiety, or grief. Kristopher also works with LGBTQIA+ adults seeking to explore their identity and express their authentic self. Daytime and evening appointment times available.
Katie Gaynor, MA, ATR-P has openings available for new clients ages 6-adult looking for help processing grief, stress, anxiety and depression, trauma, or life transitions. Afternoon and evening appointment times available.
Adele Stuckey, LPC, ATR-BC has availability for new clients seeking therapy for couples work, LGBTQIA+ affirming therapy, perinatal mental health, anxiety, depression, or trauma. Daytime appointment times available.
Reach out today to schedule your free 15-minute consultation with one of our therapists.
Links We Like
No links this week, other than the letter archives shared above, as I take a step away from the internet to celebrate the holidays. Back at you with the good stuff in the new year.
Feeling reflective. Photo by Pia Riverola:
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