One Little Word for 2013: Possibility

I have seen several exercises for starting a new year on my friends’ FaceBook pages and blogs this week.

❧ A list of what you want to do more of and what you want to do less of.
❧ What you do on New Year’s Day sets the tone for the year; choose wisely.
❧ Check in with your map (have a map!).
❧ A list of what brought happiness and what brought disappointment or sorrow in the year past.
❧ Choose a word for the new year; and, if you had one, review how your word in the old year informed your living.
❧ Set intentions, intentionally. Create your new year.

I have done, or am doing, all of them. They seem more helpful for creating intentional living than random "resolutions." I hope looking back isn’t restricted to December 31 and looking forward doesn’t have to be completed on January 1. If it does, I’m behind. The way I see it, the first half of 2013, for me, needs to be spent in this way. It is the second half of my gap year. Time to assess life past and dream life future into being.

On New Year’s Day, I didn’t know it was the day to set the tone––to touch on, in one day, all the things I wanted more of in my life. Still, I wrote a poem that I liked, I went for a walk up the snowy road, I went to a two-hour yoga workshop with my sisters, I read, I tried to be nice. And at the very end of the year I had gone exploring into new places in the mountains. Not bad for not being intentional.

My word for 2012 was Venture. It was a little bit of a cheat, because I already knew I was going to sell my house and move across the country. I even knew in my heart of hearts that I was going to drive with my cat in an old car (though I was still considering options). That right there had pretty tremendous potential for a big adventure. (And just as an aside, it turned out to be the second best time I ever had in my life; and the other best was also spent driving cross-country). But in choosing the word, I explored many ways to venture into the new and unknown. It was a perfect word. It gave me courage to keep moving forward through the fear and doubt.

In the yoga workshop on Tuesday, I got my word for the new year: Possibility. The future is before me, and the possibilities are wide open. They will not be the last choices for where I live and what I do with my living. But they are the next, and I want to choose carefully. Also at yoga, after we considered in two breaks from asanas who we are and if the manifestation of ourselves is in alignment with our deepest purpose, the teacher said one of those things you have heard before but suddenly hear again for the first time: “You are already the person you want to be.” She is in there, I just have to let her out. As I told my sisters, I only need to get out of my way.

After dropping my sister off at SeaTac on Thursday, I stopped at Tacoma Mall. The day was crystal clear––Mt. Rainier sharply silhouetted against the cerulean sky in the east, the snowy Olympics glistening in the sun  to the west, acting out the gloriosity of the PNW. I had planned to drive to Steilacoom, a historic town on Chambers Bay that my local sister had heard might be a possible fine place to live some day. The western state psychiatric hospital is close by, too. I might need to check in there. I came out of the mall and headed back to I-5. I knew there had to be a closer way than the way I knew, which entailed circling the mall; how hard could it be? I got lost. I finally turned on GPS Phoebe who got me there.

To get to Steilacoom I had to go south and then back north, past miles of razor wire and camouflage of Fort Lewis/ McChord AFB, then more miles of soaring stately fir trees that lined the road and tickled the blue sky; then down the hillside above the Puget Sound inlet that sparkled behind the ferry terminal in front of the stupendously spectacular Olympic mountains' backdrop. Not much of a town, I can remove it from my Possibility list for living in; but that is not the story.

I thought I would let Phoebe lead me out, maybe there was a better, or at least different, route than the back yard of the military base. Like the wisepeople of old, I was open to returning home by another way. Where she took me was ridiculous. I kept saying, “Really, Phoebe?” I even saw the sign to I-5; but I was curious, so I went with Phoebe, heading farther and farther north when my destination was south. I finally smacked my hand against my forehead in realization that she was following my first “get me out of here” request. The one that started at Tacoma Mall. She was taking me through Lakewood (the biggest, ugliest strip city I ever saw; and where the mental institution actually is––of course it wouldn’t be in a healing environment like Chambers Bay), back to the mall and then to I-5, instead of starting from where I was. I had failed to put a new search. I had listened to another's voice instead of reading the road signs in front of me.

So now I am wondering: what are the possibilities if I start this year from where I am right now? A fresh start doesn’t have to mean forgetting who and where I have been, but it is so easy to get stuck there. “I can’t [fill in the blank] because [fill in the excuse].” If I think about that, the excuse always circles back to who I have been in the past. Who and what can I be starting right here and now? I can put in a new search.

It seems overwhelming to have the whole rest of my life spread out in front of me with the only real restrictions being my own fear and self-doubt. But in yoga a couple of weeks ago, Mo led us through asanas by breathing into release then exhaling into a little bit deeper place. “Micro movements achieve micro adjustments,” she said. Micro adjustments add up to significant change. That awakening was reenforced on NPR the day after New Year’s when a caller into the program I was listening to extolled the idea of making “one degree of change.” One degree, and then one more, that’s double the change. Two degrees is just that easy.

I pulled up to the coffee shop today, thinking about small steps and the map I sort of drew for myself a year ago, and returned to one of things I had wanted to do, just for the fun of it: learn how to be a barista. Never know when that might be a useful skill here in the land of all things coffee. Why haven’t I done it? All I have to do is ask someone if they would teach me, and offer something in return. As friend Amelia said in her recent blog post, “My map! I had forgotten to check my map.”

Possibility is achieved in small steps forward, not giant leaps that might land you in a crater out of which you will have to slowly extricate yourself. But first, the map. I don’t have to know the whole route, I don’t have to know the exact roads. But let the exploration begin. Where do I want the next stop to be? What do I want to pack from my past into my suitcase? What do I want to give to a thrift shop, or bury in the landfill? What new clothes do I want to pack? And is my map in my front pocket where I can check it easily?

A dear friend sent this Blessing for Epiphany by Jan Richardson. I am studying.

The Map You Make Yourself



You have looked

at so many doors

with longing,

wondering if your life

lay on the other side.



For today,

choose the door

that opens

to the inside.



Travel the most ancient way

of all:

the path that leads you

to the center

of your life.



No map

but the one

you make yourself.



No provision

but what you already carry

and the grace that comes

to those who walk

the pilgrim’s way.



Speak this blessing

as you set out

and watch how

your rhythm slows,

the cadence of the road

drawing you into the pace

that is your own.



Eat when hungry.

Rest when tired.

Listen to your dreaming.

Welcome detours

as doors deeper in.



Pray for protection.

Ask for the guidance you need.

Offer gladness

for the gifts that come

and then

let them go.



Do not expect

to return

by the same road.

Home is always

by another way

and you will know it

not by the light

that waits for you



but by the star

that blazes inside you

telling you

where you are

is holy

and you are welcome

here.

Weaving with New Colors

I have struggled in recent weeks with what to write in this blog. My garden was my inspiration, and gardening is in my past for now. I wonder, not for the first time, if the blog has also run its course.

I lamented to my friend Katherine this week that I didn’t know what to write about. She gave me a quote for inspiration, “If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm aiming for, how will it ever occur?” (Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love). That is a starting place for January. But first things first; it’s not the new year quite yet.

You know those toy cars that you put on the dining room floor and pull backward toward you several times before you let go and the car careens across the floor and crashes into the dining table leg? They can’t go forward until you pull them backward. I don’t think you can move forward in life, either, until you pause to look at where you have been.    

Can you stand a metaphor that compares life to a piece of woven fabric? A blanket of all one color is functional as something to keep you warm, but it isn’t very interesting as a piece of art. A weaving that abruptly changes color, as if the artist had paid no attention to what came before, is not pleasing to look at. But one that weaves complementary colors in and out of the warp of consistency, can be looked at and into and remain an ongoing source of joy and beauty and depth forever. I aim to continue the colors that worked for me this year, perhaps pick up some that I dropped from previous years, and then add some new hues; while staying true to my core. The first step to keep the color moving is to look at what I wove this year.

I look back at my January 2012 blog post as I ponder the year past. After a too-warm December, it is full of photographs of the emerging garden. The sedum poking up through the dead old growth, a black-eyed Susan, the Lenten rose. I am swiftly overcome with longing for the life I planted in that garden, for the greedy squirrel eating the birdseed outside the door of my sweet house, for the sunrise over Oakwood Cemetery. It is a bright spot in the fabric of my life. I hope it is being loved.

Last January I began the One Little Word Project. I chose a word to focus on for the year: Venture. I certainly ventured, though I only did the OLW exercises for five months. My Venture (selling my house, quitting my job, leaving my friends, moving across the country, living with my mother) was so bold, I couldn’t really focus on the subtle colors I want to weave into my life. And yet, as I look back, I see that the colors of mountains and ocean, of sunrises and sunsets, of stories from Mama and learning about how to be in this relationship with her, of new friends, of writing about and photographing this new existence are weaving through my fabric. But it doesn’t feel like it’s hanging together yet. This week I will sit, with my pen as the shuttle and paper as my loom, and consider what new threads need to be added to my 2013 fabric to make it pleasing.

But first, the sun is shining. Time for a little road trip exploration over the hills and dales with my new camera. Perhaps as long as my life has not run its course, neither has writing about it. I am going in search of new colors.

One Little Word for a New Year

“And now let us welcome the New Year. Full of things that have never been” (Rainer Maria Rilke).

A week ago I spend my Saturday journaling time making a list of highlights of 2011--what brought me happiness, and what brought sorrow. As I live with my list this week, I realize three things: 1) the joy far outweighs the sad; 2) without intentionality, I did not name the list successes and failures; 3) I drove every one of the pleasures, and the sorrows were all out of my control.

It felt like a hard year; I am surprised that the balance tips heavily toward joy. Why do we so often let the hard feel weightier than the good? It feels important that I don't think in terms of success and failure. Those words imply something completely different from how I am growing toward the sixth decade of life, and what is important to me. I didn't realize that before now. And, while there is always going to be disappointment and sorrow, we can't always control it; maybe we usually cannot. It is even true that sometimes with wishes fulfilled there is something lost. I don't believe that is always true, but often we must weigh the gain against the price and then proceed, or not. And when life gives us lemons, well, you know: we either make lemonade or jump into the disposal. Our choice.

I leave work at midday on Thursday to use some vacation hours. I feel a little lost; unsure of how to use my precious afternoon. I end up in the garden on what feels like a spring day. I go out to take the trash and recycling to the street, and don’t go back in. I start in on fall garden clean-up, without my gloves of course. It’s been so warm that a lot of the garden hasn’t died back in a timely manner. I start with the summer phlox. It is definitely dried up. I pull the annual penta out of the shard garden. I take a picture of the sun in the tops of the trees up through the dogwood. Without warning I am crying. I feel unbearable sadness. I take it out on the English ivy, just as I did when I began the garden nearly five years ago. It feels good to yank it loose, just as it did then. I get my gloves and clippers.

The banana grove has many dead leaves, but the stalks are still sturdy. I have been kind of enjoying the rattle when the wind blows. And there are several new leaves ready to unfurl. I cut off the leaves I can reach with my short clippers and leave the ones in the top. Perhaps they will protect the new leaves next week when the temperatures plummet to their lowest of the season after this weekend back in the mid-60s. (My mother wants to see another spring in the south before she leaves this life. She should have come for Christmas.) I don’t know what to do with the Purple Heart, the inspiration for the Global Purple front door. The dead parts are all tangled up with the not dead parts, and there is some new growth. I run my hands through it gently and throw out what comes loose, leaving the rest. It, too, will probably be gone after the coming cold snap. I feel like the Purple Heart. Much of who I have been in this city for the past 24 years is dead. I need to run my hands gently through my life and see what comes loose and what is left.

The year that was is gone, and I am looking forward. It is going to be an interesting year, for two things I am going to be a second time grandmother, and I will welcome a new daughter-in-law. Happy things. On day one the year is already unusual: I go out with friends and stay out to see the New Year open! We have dinner al fresco (yes, you read that right, outside in December). We walk among the revelers at First Night, and observe, but do not ride, the "similar to the one in Paris" ferris wheel in a downtown intersection; and touch for good luck, but do not stay to watch drop, the Raleigh acorn.

One of the experiences I am pursuing for this year is signing on to an online workshop called "One Little Word." Amelia did it last year and found it provocative and challenging. Participants choose one single word to invite into their life and engage with all year; to listen to and to see where it leads. Each month there is a prompt with a simple creative, writing, or photography project and a gentle reminder to check back in with your word. Presumably this time next year I will have a journal of some sort to look back on and see where my word took me.

I am not going to share here, right now, the word I have chosen. I need to let it dwell within me for now. I am sure you will see on the page where it is leading me. However, if any of you would like to join this venture with me, let me know. I will share my word with you, and embrace you and yours. Perhaps we can share our journeys on some online interactive web-something, or just between the two of us. Partners are always good when embarking on a new adventure. You can learn more at  One Little Word.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover” (Mark Twain).