I will plant a garden, providing the plants with water, sunlight, and that third thing that plants need.

I will clean my house top to bottom until I lose interest and decide that dirty windows give me more privacy.

I will wear the perfect amount of sunscreen so that I don’t look like clown-faced Mark Zuckerberg on that surfboard or red-faced Mark Zuckerberg at a Senate hearing.

I will buy tulips from the grocery store, and when they droop all the way over within twelve hours I will not take that as an omen about what spring holds.

You better believe I’m gonna start wearing my hat!

I will commit blackmail against any number of people wearing Tevas until one of them tells me where I can forage some ramps.

I will say, “This is the year I get really into baseball!,” and then I will go to one Yankees game but decide to leave because it is too loud.

I will learn what scapes are, and I will grow them in my perfect garden, which I still need to research so that I know what that third thing is that plants need.

I will join a run club, and I’ll run so regularly that I won’t even yell to everyone I meet, “I joined a run club!”

I will read “The Body Keeps the Score” on a park bench, after spending a decade just saying the title aloud and nodding.

I swear to God I’m going to ride a horse.

I will go to the botanical garden at the exact moment that the cherry blossoms reach peak bloom, and I’ll hate everyone else for also being at the botanical garden at the exact moment that the cherry blossoms reach peak bloom.

I will start biking, and, when I get where I’m going, I’ll spend the whole time worried that my bike has been stolen.

I will commit to never losing my sunglasses by never remembering to bring my sunglasses.

I will become a person who goes camping and gets Lyme disease so that I will finally be on trend.

I will realize that life is a series of seasons, phases, repeated attempts to be our best selves, and noble failures, but then I will forget all this when it’s summer and it’s too hot to have ideas.

Soil! The third thing is soil. I knew this garden was missing something. ♦