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machado: this new year, why not resolve to take just what you can carry and leave the rest behind
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whatever it is you have been carrying this year, if it's not bringing you joy, and if you can do something about it — even it's hard and awkward — drop it like it's hot. getty
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“the holding never stops.”
this from new york-based artist and illustrator maira kalman. she was speaking at a ted talk about her book and collection of paintings called “women holding things,” an artistic ode to women and all that we carry with us. together with deliciously playful, sardonic and truthful paintings (one particularly annoyed-looking woman is carrying a huge cabbage in one hand, while holding the leashes of two dogs in the other), kalman lists the multitude of things that women hold, including the home and children, food, heavy loads, work and grudges. there are other things too: love, memories and friendships. it’s an insightful and enjoyable tribute to what it can mean to be a woman. the mary ryan gallery, which had kalman’s paintings on display in 2022, called it “a love song to the women in our world.”
certainly, there’s something to be said about holding your stuff — woman or not, we are all carrying something. it is likely not a giant cabbage (although what i would give to only have to worry about hauling around an immense cruciferous vegetable). maybe it’s the heaviness of grief and loss that weighs on your shoulders, or breathtaking regret that sits like an elephant on your chest, or sweaty worry that you hold tightly clasped in your hands. (we carry great things too, like resilience and courage and children and dogs and a sense of badassery – but this baggage is light and airy, and helps us keep our heads up and looking forward.)
what kalman’s book and paintings don’t illustrate is what comes after the heavy-lifting — the dropping, the putting down and the leaving behind. surely we aren’t meant to “hold” food, work, heavy loads and grudges (etc.) forever. right?
are you getting that urge to make a change?
it’s one of the themes of the season, close on the heels of peace, love and joy, the gnawing urge to let go of the stuff that begs us to make change and want to resolve to do better in the new year. even if you are viciously skeptical of the point and purpose of resolutions — after all, jan. 17 isn’t known as “ditch new year’s resolutions day” for nothing — it becomes harder to ignore the nagging sensation that if ever there was a time to ditch that monstrous cabbage on your back, this is it, the eve of the new year — the moment to commit to cutting it loose and starting anew. (by the way, did you know that while cabbage is nutritious, it is a gas-producing vegetable that can cause bloating, abdominal pain, and diarrhea in some people. it’s also prone to bugs, like moth larvae, aphids, worms and parasitic wasps, and bacterial and fungal diseases.)
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perhaps your “cabbage” is rolled up in one of the top three most common resolutions that people promise to rid themselves of : unhealthy weight, needless spending and mental health self-sabotage (for example, endless scrolling on social media). or maybe it’s a cruciferous challenge that’s unique to you — the unabating, longing daydreams of owning a motorcycle, the constant ruminating over why you let those toxic personalities that make you feel so bad make you feel so bad, hating the fact that you sometimes let fear make your decisions or wishing you could just let go and love like you can never lose. whatever it is you are carrying, if it’s not bringing you joy, and if you can do something about it — even it’s hard and awkward and nausea-inducing — drop it like it’s hot. in other words, buy that motorcycle, ditch the toxic peeps, decide to make decisions that make you happy, even if they scare you, and yes, love like it’s your last day on this earth.
we have been promising to be better for centuries
after all, it’s not new, this feeling of needing to make a new start as a new year rolls in. we’ve been doing it for centuries. the ancient babylonians got the same annual it’s-time-for-a-change vibe 4,000 years ago, reports history. their “promises” weren’t about exercising more and spending less, but rather, focused on repaying debt and returning things they had borrowed — otherwise they would be looked upon poorly by the gods (nobody wants that). early christians used the first day of the new year as an opportunity to look back on their mistakes of the year and pledge to do better going forward, while reading from the bible and singing hymns. and then there’s us, making promises to ourselves about ourselves, promises that most of us can only keep up for just over three months.
of course, not all “cabbage” can be left behind, made to change or disappear, just because we wish it to be so. grief and loss, illness and trauma, bad life decisions — all the things that stick to you and can’t easily be let go of, if ever. the best we can hope for is that the pain softens, the sickness eases or heals, our demons shrink and the regrets that poke at us retreat.
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and maybe instead of promises of self-improvement, we create a mantra for ourselves this new year’s eve as the clock strikes midnight, to only take with us what we must, can and want to carry and leave the rest far, far behind.
from everyone here at healthing, we wish you a fabulous 2024, full of health and hope. as always, there are a lot of choices out there, thank you for choosing healthing.
lisa machado is the executive producer of advocacy & better health. she can be reached at lmachado@postmedia.com.
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