Tom has taken to walking out of rooms backwards. He'll be standing there, watching Joanne and I in the kitchen, and it will occur to him that he should be in the next room. "Bye bye!" he'll say, and completely fail to turn around before leaving. Every once in a while, he'll keep offering "Bye byes!" as he heads out. I mean, he's still facing us, so why not?

I am constantly astonished at how often he tries something new, just to see what it feels like, just to gain a different perspective on this world thing we've got going. The boy's got no inertia, no reason not to experiment. Life is a block box to him, to be toyed with and poked at until it does something interesting. Why not walk out of a room backwards? Why not run in circles until you fall down? Why not touch this or jump on that or scream for no reason or just babble to yourself, to see what sounds you can make? Why not do something new every day? Why not?

For the life of me, I can't think of a reason.

And so, thank you. Thank for visiting and for writing and for linking. Thank you for making this not-a-weblog an enormous amount of fun to do. I never would have dreamt that I could have enjoyed it as much as I have.

But a year is a long time, and I can't help but think that I should be doing something new. I don't know what it is yet, but it should be something new.

I hear walking out of the room backwards is a good place to start.