TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

I’m ready for the new year. I’m ready for all of the possibilities it might bring. But I’m not making any resolutions. I never do. 

Yes, New Year’s resolutions are positive. It’s good to aspire, to set goals, to strive to do and be better. But also, all of the “New Year, New You” promotions this time of year make me a little uncomfortable. I don’t like the idea of starting January off with a spirit of “I need to level up.” As if we’re beginning at a deficit. As if, on day one of the new year, we’re already behind. 

This is where language can save us, though, and give us another option. If you’ve been listening to The Slowdown for a while, you know I’m a self-proclaimed “word nerd.” I love knowing the origins of words, so of course I was curious about the origin of resolution. We can trace the word back to the Latin resolvere, which means “loosen” or “release.” 

Now this is an idea, an image, that I can embrace. The origin of resolution suggests that we don’t need to do or be more—maybe we actually need less. We are enough on day one of the new year, and in fact, we may actually be carrying too much! If this speaks to you, maybe you want to make a different kind of New Year’s resolution this year: an invitation to loosen some old knots in your life, or release something that’s no longer serving you.

Today’s poem feels right for today because it’s a “new year, same you” poem. Because being who you are, and nothing more, is exactly what you need to be doing—this year, next year, every year.

The Ship
by Bianca Stone

In the discontinuous chair you realize
               nothing can wholly be written about or said.


You look up, smiling. It’s almost laughable,


the beauty of dusk in summer,
the torment of nature! It just keeps going,


death flourishing,
               ruinousnessly becoming, it
keeps going. I tell you, it’s
                                                 laughable


to get high and look at it all,
                                 stepping into the other world
               you’re already in, with your other face—saying of course


it is so good to live
               in the lucky fallout of words


said in a certain order in front of you and


               I still long—from my once
one-dimensional art


of impossible mourning—I long,
               a message, under the fold of an origami wing—


but I’d rather construct this giant boat, look at you,
and leave. My prow, a naked girl


smiling under a white mask with red lips, in-looking, I plow
forward, the purple waves
               of the world fall together around me—

imagine it: to keep going.


               As if I had only one intention.
And it was to be


exactly who I am
               for the rest of my life.

"The Ship" by Bianca Stone from THE NEAR AND DISTANT WORLD © 2026 Bianca Stone. Used by permission of the poet.