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Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice
would you give your current self for the year ahead?
Write a note to yourself 10 years ago.
What would you tell your younger self?
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i would give the same advice
to my ten-years-ago self and
to my five-years-ahead self:
::
save.
savor.
soar.
::
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What should you have done this year but didn’t
because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or
otherwise deterred from doing?
::
There was not enough:
balance
digging my hands in the dirt with the sun on my back
running long enough and far enough and hard enough
doing nothing but existing
enjoying the company of friends
eating of vegetables
holding hands with my husband
listening
hours spent with my parents
hugging of my children
walking in the moonlight
time.
::
I can fix all of them but one.
::
::
What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip
evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011?
::
To say that I was healed in 2010, by anything, would first mean that I had to have been hurt, or broken, or sick. And I was a little of each at numerous times, I suppose. But not in any significant way. Not in any way that was overwhelming or devastating or catastrophic. Just in the day to day way of life, where these things happen sometimes. In that respect, I’d have to say it was a pretty good year.
There have been other years when I needed healing, other years when the hurt, or the broken, or the sick were the themes in my life. But fortunately for me, 2010 was not one of them.
This is something I am profoundly grateful for. Something that I can appreciate in a way that, five years ago, I wouldn’t have. Five years ago, I would have taken a year like this for granted and gone out to celebrate on New Year’s Eve expecting another one just like it.
Now I know better. I know that nothing is forever, the good luck or the bad luck, the joy or the sadness, the war or the peace.
Life is ever-changing. Sometimes faster than we can keep up with. We have no idea what is around the next bend in the road.
Oh, we pretend we do sometimes, we make plans and set goals and unfurl long lists with things we have to do along the way to get there. There. To where we think we are going.
Only life has a way of laughing at those plans. Of throwing herds of cattle and oil slicks and thunderstorms and a whole host of other obstacles in our way. Things that alter our plans, minute by minute.
And so, we adapt. We stop and wait for the cows to pass. We pull ourselves back out of the ditch we ended up in. We sit there and watch the tree that got struck by lighting burn, and we weep.
We go on. That is life. That is healing.
We have hope. Hope allows us to leave open the possibility for change. Within ourselves and within others. Hope allows healing to happen.
It doesn’t really fix anything at all, this hope.
It just opens the door to let new things walk in, after the broken, or the hurt, or the sick, walk out.
And fortunately in 2010, my door was wide open.
::
What do you want to try next year?
::
continue growing,
thorns and all.
::
What was the best thing you learned about yourself
this past year? And how will you
apply that lesson going forward?
::
that my soul
can be found
among
words.
::
and so,
i write.
::
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How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the
world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?
::
my friendships grew like a tree this year
my trunk was strengthened,
branches were added,
roots were formed.
::
a canopy of leaves
formed overhead
that kept the rain
off my shoulders.
::
::
Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes.
Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most
want to remember about 2010.
I feel like I did exactly that in the way I answered the wisdom prompt.
But here is today’s five minute synopsis.
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I fell in love. With a kitten.
I felt the sun on my face as sweat poured off my body,
taking stress and frustration with it.
I spent a weekend giggling in the Thousand islands,
most notably when my niece dropped her glasses
in the toilet.
I held my husband’s hand many times.
I whispered my secrets to the moon.
I got rained on, a lot, but I did not melt.
I sat in my garden once and wrote about everything
directly in front of me. It was life.
I gave out a lot of hugs. This is new,
I never used to be a hugger.
I started two blogs. I wrote every day.
Every day.
I counseled my children. Sometimes they listened,
sometimes they did not.
I spent time at the hospital with my mom. She spent
most of her time asking questions of her caretakers,
remembering the names of their children.
I stopped my car by the side of the road,
more than once, to take pictures.
I drove for two hours to find the base of a windmill.
It was like finding the end of the rainbow.
Then I fell in love again, with the other kitten.
And it all went by in exactly five minutes.
::
What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in
the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?
::
I could have several answers to this question. In fact, there could be a list. But the questions says “one thing.” It’s always so hard to narrow anything down to just one thing, all the choices that we have to throw away if we decide on just one.
I could have said life. The fact that I breathe, that I wake up and get out of bed every morning. Of course, we all do that, but five years ago I had a health scare, and ever since then, I don’t take these things for granted quite so much. And life is a pretty big one thing.
I could have said being an artist. I have worked as a graphic artist for 24 years, and as a jewelry artist for five, but it wasn’t until this year that I actually started calling myself artist.
I could have said writing, I’ve always written, poetry started flowing from my veins when I was thirteen. I was published, years ago, in some (very small) literary magazines, but it wasn’t until this year that I began to call myself writer.
But underneath all of these things, hiding under the covers down near my feet, is something that trumps them all, something that it took me 48 years to learn to appreciate.
The moment.
Living in it, writing in it, breathing it in.
Appreciating it as it happens. Not waiting for tomorrow or next year to live the life I want. Not rushing through life with my head down and my nose to the grindstone.
Living where I am, right now, right this second. Wherever I am. Whoever I am with. Whatever I am doing.
I know it sounds cliché. And I am okay with that. Because until I’d learned to do it, it was cliché. And don’t get me wrong, I have not mastered being present. I still forget to do it, quite often. I get busy and distracted and it all goes out the window.
But I know how to get back there. I know where my moment is.
It’s right here, all around me.
And I express my gratitude
by living in it.
::
When it comes to aspirations, its not about ideas.
It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?
::
no matter what,
my next step
will be forward.
::
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This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?
Okay, I am cheating again. I hadn’t planned to, but once again, I have no better answer to this prompt than a post I had already written, back in April. And suppose it’s no coincidence that this post also had a hawk in it. Plus, now I will have a little extra time to catch up on some of the other fabulous reberb10 reading out there!
::
I pulled a million dandelions out of my garden yesterday.
Okay, I exaggerate. A tad. But you know what? I enjoyed every minute of it. Not the dandelions themselves, but the work. The labor. The being outside in the sun listening to the birds sing
while breathing in the wonderfully fresh spring air kind of labor.
A labor of love.
My favorite way to spend a day, when I have a whole day to spend, is in my garden. No rushing, no agenda, just me, the earth, the plants, the birds, and perhaps a worm or two thrown in for good measure.
The hours pass silently, the way they will when you are doing something you love. I don’t think about them, clock them, care about them. I don’t spend them worrying about how fast they are flying by, the way I do most days.
I am suspended in garden time like a lazy bumblebee drifting from flower to flower. The sun on my back, a little Joni Mitchell or Ben Webster in the background. And the good, hard work. Simple work. The kind that lets your mind wander where it will, and somehow nudges those wanderings in just the right direction.
Sweating, but not the small stuff. Folding life down into a tiny microcosm, a world that exists just outside my vision most of the time. An ant struggling with a piece of food three times his size. Tree swallows taking turns bringing food to their babies. The sudden hush when a hawk flies over… so quiet that you stop what you are doing without knowing why.
You have to be there to notice these things. In the present. In the moment. This one moment that you only have while you are in it. The young swallows will fly away, soon. The ant will finish his journey and live, or die. The hawk will take something precious to another, but the birds will sing again, continue on.
I am glad I stole those hours. They were worth the extra work that will have to be made up later. They were hours of peace. And quiet. The kind of quiet that lets you listen to yourself, the world around you, the birds in the trees, the rustle of the wind.
The kind of quiet that lets you take it all in and keep it with you.
Until it soars back out as a smile.
