Blank Canvas

These days between the 25th of December and the 1st of January are a pause. There is a stillness and a silence to them where time feels suspended. The waiting period as one year ends before the new one begins.

I don’t make resolutions or promises to myself that I might or might not be able to keep. I’ve never done that. I don’t choose a word that will carry me through. I tried that once or twice and at some point, completely forgot what the word was. A word has meaning and maybe the word was to be mindful and have intention. But if I couldn’t remember the word, it obviously had no meaning and I’d lost the intention.

In these few remaining days of 2025, I am looking forward to painting on a new canvas – this is how I look at the start of another year around the sun.

There is a desire to clean out what no longer serves me. Things that have worn out their welcome and cannot be taken into the new year. Like going through the box of paints and taking out the ones that have dried out. The old ones that are covered in dust – the ones I’ve held on to thinking I might need them. I’m choosing a new palette, new colours whether they be water paints or oil paints. The colours that are guiding me into the new chapter of what comes next. I might need to buy new paints to complete the vision.

I’m not really talking about painting and art, though there may well be some of that in the coming months. It’s endings and beginnings. What we choose to leave behind and what we pack to take forward with us.

It’s the blank canvas that we are all presented with every year. Of what we hope to achieve, where we hope to be, the person we want to reflect both inwardly and outwardly.

It’s a conscious choice of hopes, dreams, wishes and desires. And the effort we put into what we hope to carry out. That canvas awaits us all.