Last Year I had a list, a long list, a looooooong list!

I had a plan, a mile high all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge.

I dreamed about it, wrote and virtually lived it until it all went down the drain like soap water, not the ideas but the dots on the list.

I put them all down in a cleaned, nice looking piece of paper and one by one I intended to cross them off but I didn’t.

I curved a pumpkin and put it in a mixer. I made waves of promises, sands of charts and sheaf of wheat, blueprints of rocks paraphernalia of my own desire but it never changed. I never crossed them off. Not even with a magic marker.

I envisioned stuff and made my homework.

I danced at my own tunes and rummaged the great Gods. A psychic was not available.

I dreamed big and big I did. I did it and did it all that I was going to do this and shuffle that.

I was going to ride the boardwalks, hang from the chandelier, drink water from a spoon,
 kick some ass and survive.

I was going to be God and miracles I expected.

I was going to heaven for Christ sake but I didn’t.

I didn’t because it got interrupted like always. It got derailed in a exclamation point thrown in the basket like a cartoon in heat, discarded like a piece of garbage and poof, it hit the roof.

It smelled like cinnamon and was thick like a twig, slick like a stick.

It went down before the roasters were up and up before I could sneeze but I was not discouraged. I was not broken or saddened.

I didn’t get lost or wandered off in the park.

I kept cool and took a sabbatical, unexpected as it was but vibrant and much needed brake, it gave me.

So this year, I decided not to have one. I am not making any plans. I am stopping the madness and not having a list! Dog, pig, turkey, potato or any shape or structure it will land, I decided not to write one down or dream about one but conjure one up.

I decided to have an imaginary friend and it will be my best friend.

I will have a pallid pretend list, vintage checkerboard and crossword puzzles. It will not be totally vain but a self-indulging atlas with cardball and all. I will across the steps as they come in rolls or in whatever way they may appear. I will just follow along masqueraded like a mermaid.

In 2012 my friend you will be a year older, so what?! It will not be a headache but a beach, a footnote, the price of a tag. It will not be a inconvenience but a beacon, a semicolon, a talent of your own trait.

There will be skies of unpredictableness, hoist of debris, mountains to toss, pedals to totter but don’t falter, just keep going.

Don’t load whatever into a truck, just wave it off. Keep moving and say thank you.

Don’t be just a man or just a woman, be a good man and a good woman, be a better person.

Don’t preach your better sermon, preach your superior sermon.

Don’t wait for the sky to fall but reach for the sky – as rhetoric it may sound. Go get it.

Don’t bring in the clouds, cross them off and grin.

Don’t cry a river, do what your life content and life desire.

Be yourself and let it pour.

Don’t ever stop, just keep going.

Challenge yourself, don’t make any list but THE LIST!