I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I spend an hour or so writing up two lists: one recording all the accomplishments and personal goals that were reached in the passing year, and one that’s more of a stream of consciousness brain-belch of things I’d like to do, be or become throughout the evolving new year.

Because I was traveling, it never even occurred to me to create my 2009/2010 lists. And because I’m moving and everything is changing and up for re-creation, I am excusing myself from that for now. The to-do list takes precedence: find an apartment. hike the canyon. take the dogs to the dog park. fix the computer. change the phone number. You get the picture.

Big Mama is in her 80s, has fairly severe dementia, and resides in assisted living. On her bad days she’s sassy, spiteful, beligerent, sad and confused. She wants to go home, and has walked out once or twice. The home she wants to return to is long gone, and so are the people she misses and asks about often. On her good days, she knows your name, maybe a little bit about you. But even more than that, she’s beyond lucid in the sense that she’s aware her mind moves in and out of reality.

When she’s clear-minded, she has an almost sage-like air about her. Two or three times, she’s spoken to me in words that eerily allude to things in my life she couldn’t possibly know about. She hands me straightforward knowledge and insight that I’m inclined to believe comes to her from that other reality. She’s peaceful and seems content, and it is those times with her lately I have enjoyed most.

As part of the New Year’s celebrations at her home, each resident wrote their 2010 resolution on a piece of paper. Big Mama, Edith Jane Holcomb, sometimes here, and sometimes there, posted a resolution that I’m inclined to borrow and use for my own this year:

I’d like to know who I am, and then be that person.

She once told me that she’s not sure if it’s those long dead people in her dreams who are real, or if the rather lonely day to day life she lives is the reality. I tend to think there’s a good chance that it is both.