101 Things I’m Doing in 2024
The list is late again this year because it took me forever to pick a word. Some contenders were: intuition, wildness, curiosity, family, soft, community, self, safe, open, trust, happy, joy, connection, friendship, rest, love, nourish, create.
All good words.
Last year, my word was free. I started 2023 feeling stuck—in relationships that weren’t working, in my creative life, and often in my body. I haven’t yet shared publicly that in 2023 I was finally diagnosed with having had a pontine stroke, which happened when I had my c-section in 2019. After years of terrifying neurological symptoms (facial paralysis, right side weakness, excruciating nerve pain, vertigo, balance issues, vision disturbance, migraines, etc.), dozens of doctors telling me I was just having a “bad time postpartum,” I finally found a neurologist that listened to my symptoms, did extensive evaluations and imaging, and concluded I’d had an undiagnosed stroke.
With a real diagnosis, I finally felt free. I know that’s not usually how people feel. But from the time I had Ori until he was four, I just felt like I must be incredibly weak or messed up somehow. Something was wrong with me. Mothering felt impossibly hard with the symptoms I was experiencing (and the pandemic and late-stage Capitalism). I made no decisions or chose the easiest way possible, and I have no regrets, because what else could I have done?
I spent many hours last year finally getting the physical therapy and rehab I needed. I went weekly to have my face lightly electrocuted while I balanced on balls and did patterns with my eyes to regrow neuro pathways that had been damaged. I slept more. I stopped consulting mid-June, so I could spend less time on screens and more time falling in love and riding on a boat and reading books in bed. I started writing at least three pages every morning. Ori started going to preschool and for the first time, I felt the sense of support I’d longed for since I’d had him. I learned to crochet and took up boxing (all the left brain/right brain work). I rode on a motorcycle, had the wild, wild sex of my dreams, kept a garden, and cried a lot. I let go of or reshaped many relationships that were no longer serving me and found a few new ones where I felt free.
I ended the year feeling so happy, so loved, and so content.
So for 2024, my word is home. Lately, there is no place I’d rather be. Most of my mornings are spent curled up on the couch with Mugs, Ori, and Jordan; Jane and Austen and Oona and the chickens all fed and cozy in their respective spaces. I’m doing a lot of homesteading I’d like to keep doing this year, including chicken keeping, gardening, kombucha-brewing, and sourdough bread baking. The work of unpaid work of homemaking and parenting is centered deeply in the paid job I started at the beginning of the year as the Communications Director for the campaign and movement for universal child care (childcareforeveryfamily.org); which has been work that has challenged me, made me grow, and connected me to community in so many new and good ways.
I have a lot of home projects on my list for 2024. But mostly, I’m thinking a lot about home as a safe space, a state of being, a space to nourish and be nourished in, to create. I want to continue to feel at home in my body. I want more friends and family in my home. I want to continue building a home with Jordan, who is more home to me than anything else has ever been (I can hear all of you screeching with delight).
So without further ado…
101 Things for 2024
Paint living room pink.
Get a hot tub.
Plant hens & chicks in egress windows.
Ride on an ATV with Ori.
Do childhood homes tour with Jordan.
Travel more with Ori.
Paint front door.
Take a motorcycle trip.
Ride on a snowmobile.
Obtain living room bookshelves.
Redo cement block flower beds.
Meet Nellie & Jonas.
Take a girls trip.
Go Christmas caroling.
Have a fire with friends.
Learn to play harmonica.
Make music.
Slow dance.
Get the biggest, coziest sectional couch.
Plant pumpkins and zucchini.
Put TV in a cabinet.
Go camping at least twice.
Go to a high school football game.
Host a block party.
Host a backyard dinner party.
Make art with Ori.
Hang photos from Celeste.
Plant flowers under moon window.
Cat tree for the living room.
Get a rear bike seat for Ori.
Type up all the salad poems.
Take Ori to Michigan.
Get married.
Build Ori’s sandbox.
Create nature playspace.
Paint the shed.
Get a rain barrel.
Blog more.
Find the perfect weird mailbox.
Have gas woodstove repaired.
Have a solstice party.
Update personal website with artwork and recent writing. [2021]
Get pregnant.
Publish something.
Travel to a state I’ve never been to. [2023]
Build a Little Free library. With a poem box. [2023]
Finish sunroom remodel. [2023]
Start basement remodel. [2023]
Clean out garage and make into workshop. [2023]
Create a daily gratitude ritual.
Find a bed frame I really love. [2023]
Replace ceiling fan in living room. [2023]
Submit to Mothertongue. [2023]
Make a galette with yard berries. [2023]
Visit all of Portland’s used bookstores. [2023]
Refinish a piece of furniture. [2023]
Have favorite denim shirt repaired. [2023]
Finish flower pressing book from three summers ago. [2023]
Apply to grad school. [2023]
Knit a blanket. [2023]
Learn how to quilt. [2023]
Get a pair of nice hiking boots. [2023]
Visit the Atlantic Ocean. [2016]
Go on a writing retreat. [2017]
Visit Mount Hood. [2018]
Visit Mount Saint Helens. [2018]
Teach a writing workshop. [2018]
Go for a long solo hike. [2019]
Go dancing. [2019]
Take a 24-hour digital detox. No screens. [2020]
Make a zine. [2020]
Collage more.
See a movie alone. [2020]
Take an art history class.
Go kayaking. [2020]
Visit family in Denver. [2020]
Leave a 100% tip. [2020]
Make a family tree for Ori. [2020]
Repair favorite quilt. [2021]
Finish cross stitch project. [2023]
Finish a book arts project. [2021]
Send a holiday card that arrives before the holidays. [2021]
Finish putting together emergency kits. [2021]
Try punch needling. [2021]
Have coffee or tea on the couch with a friend. [2021]
Send 10 thank you cards or letters to people I’m grateful for. [2021]
Attend a story time with Ori. [2021]
Do annual collecting through notebooks. [2023]
Play cards. [2021]
Pick a color for the outside of the house. [2023]
Do something that’s braver than anything I’ve ever done.
Have a patio dinner party. [2023]
Go horseback riding again. [2023]
Do a crossword. [2023]
Play checkers. [2023]
Return to Soapstone. [2023]
Go to the beach and lay in the sun for a whole day. [2023]
Get new blinds. [2023]
Finish upstairs bathroom remodel. [2023]
Grow wildflowers. [2023]
Finish this list.
What is 101 Things all about?
It’s year 14 of #101Things! If you’re brand new in my life (and there are so many of you, thanks 2023), I close out each year dreaming up 101 things I’d like to do in the next year.
101 Things is a way to uncover and create your most wildly beautiful life. There aren’t any rules. The things can be big or small, wild or mundane. The beauty happens in the list-making. Every year I surprise myself by writing something like “go kayaking” or “get pregnant,” because I’m pushing myself to really think about what I’d like to do.
I also notice what I want to keep on the list and which things I haven’t gotten done. I mark the year they first appeared on the list in brackets (e.g. [2009] means it’s been on the list since 2009). In 2023, I finally crossed off going to the opera, which had been on my list since 2016. It’s also fun to see what things I thought I’d do last year that didn’t come into fruition and now aren’t important to me (a lot of organizing tasks were on my list for 2023 and none of them are coming with me into 2024).
If you make a list, I’d love to see it! Send me a note here, on Instagram, or use #101Thingsfor2024.