Chris Shana

Hi, I was just thinking, do you remember what it felt like on the first day back at school? I don't mean the new classes, nerves and stuff, I mean the new books.

Opening a fresh, clean, new book, with new pages and new beginnings.

As a child, my Mum went to great effort to cover my books beautifully. She and I would spend hours covering them in brown paper, then we would go through the old birthday cards we had kept from the year before and cut out the best and most beautiful pictures - my very favourite was an "old world" lady with a pink and white dress, a big hat and a lace parasol. Then we would paste them on to the front of my book and Mum would write my name carefully, in her fluid and neat handwriting, on each book before we covered it with protective plastic.

And while I loved all this, there was still nothing more promising than opening those books for the first time - a new beginning.

I would promise myself I would try extra hard

•  not to make a mistake
• not to mess it up
• to write extra neat
• and get everything right

This year my books would look perfect at the end of the year, not tattered and ragged like the ones from last year.

This year, these books, would be different.

Isn't that just what a new year feels like?
A chance to

• not make any mistakes
• not to mess it up
• to keep it all neat
• and get everything right

I guess that is what I still do. I promise myself this year, that I will get it perfect.

Of course I won't, I will make mistakes, mess it up, it won't all be neat and I certainly won't get everything right. But, like my school days, I will learn from my mistakes and clean up my mess. I now know not everything is meant to be neat and that things are not always right or wrong, maybe just right or left. I have learnt that perfect just means perfect for me, exactly how it is meant to be. And of course it is or it would be different.

I am also aware that a creative, fun and colourful book is more enjoyable, more real and more me, than any neat, tidy and "right" book I ever tried to have.

Oh, but I still do love the new book and the new year.

I love the idea that I get to start over, that it is a new page, in a new book and a new beginning.

Who knows what this book/year will hold, or how it well look at the end, but, whatever it brings, I will great it with a loving heart, a grateful soul and an excited and curious spirit.

Happy New Book Everyone

From my soul to yours
With love

Chris Shana