Two years ago a friend of mine took a photo every day for a full year. It was beautiful to witness the growth in her simple pursuit – the intimacy of the daily practice. I want to do the same, only with writing and photographs. Why do I want to write? I haven’t written in a long time. But here I am, on 1 January 2023, doing it again and I can’t promise it will be good. I mean some days, it’ll definitely be bad. And I can’t promise that some days it’ll be more than a few sentences but I can promise I will do it.

The same friend I mentioned earlier (the one that took a photograph every day of the year) asked me in late November 2022 if we could each take a photograph of each other’s families for the upcoming Christmas. I didn’t get to it, which was totally on me because in the rush that was 2022 – I just didn’t follow up with her. That was one of the themes of my 2022 (along with sleep deprivation): I ran out of time. I rushed. I spread myself too thin. And so I’m taking back some time to breathe. To write. To look at the world differently through my lens. To really look. Again, I can’t promise good photographs. Only photographs.

While I’m at it, maybe I’ll throw that Christmas photo into the mix of 365 days of writing and photographs. It can be a kind of swan song … a little less than year from now: The three of us, Kit (who will be two then), Jess and I. Maybe my tummy will show the first signs of our second child. Maybe it won’t. Time will tell. And so will I, right here.  Hopefully we (and here I mean Jess and I) will look a little less tired in the lead up to Christmas 2023). For the record, Kit, who is 13 months now, is not tired. Kit is feisty and already (to my surprise) shakes off hands that try to help her up steps from the deck to the garden or that try to steer her away from table top corners. Kit is ready to go. Ready to waddle to get her ball and choose a book and run with pure delight to a trio of children that clearly believe she is too young to play with them. She is game to run down sand dunes into the turquoise of the lagoon with no abandon. She does it, again and again, even after face-planting.  I want some of that for myself. That unabandon-ness. That repeat after the face-plant.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me slow down and not try tell you everything at once. There is time. It’s only 1 January 2023 and this writing and this photographing will be a marathon not a sprint. And that’s really why I’m posting this now: I’m good at sprints – not great at marathons. And so I need to write this and post it and try hold myself to it, so that I can change; so that this writing and this practice and this year will cause a shift. I need one.

Last year, we ushered 2022 in with a colic-ky (what is colic even?) five or six hours of brutal crying from Kit. The whole year seemed to take its note from that beginning. A bit out of our control. At the whim of teeth coming in and flu hitting and chasing our tails. But this 31 December was gentler with us (still, the sleep deprivation but a lot less crying). Maybe the whole year will follow suit. Suite? I think it’s suit.

2023 – hello – be good to me; to us. I will be the same to you. I will safeguard you. I will not give in to the urge of filling every hour of you with seconds run, despite what Kipling encouraged. No. I will take my time and I will pitch up here, every day. I will write. And I will take a photograph to remind me that this time and this year is fleeting but it does not need to be chased. This writing and these photographs will invite me to stop – to remember that flowers smell good and there is nothing I love more than to swim in wild water.

Here’s that photograph.

Kit in her car seat, en route to the golf course for a walk. St Francis. 13 months. 1 January 2013