like the tulips

~ onehopefulyear ~ Leave a comment

I picked up my camera this morning, determined to photograph the tulips splayed across the counter in our kitchen.

Unabashed, those tulips flop this way and that, hardly noticing my admiration. Happy as could be. Happy as they are.

It’s no small feat chasing early spring light around our home, but it can be done. After a short tussle with some white backdrop paper and finding a focus, I feel . . . happier . . .

Happier, certainly, than before I felt the heft of that camera in my hand.

Happiness, I suppose, could be as simple as asking myself what brings me happiness – and answering honestly.

Aside from the considerable factors of living in today’s world which are well beyond my control, I can answer honestly and choose the day’s happiness.

Choose unabashed hope. Choose to admire my imperfections. Acknowledge my effort. Assume my beauty, regardless.

Like the tulips.

me as I am

~ onehopefulyear ~ Leave a comment

I choose – today – to accept me as I am. Remaining open, of course, to who I may be tomorrow and remembering with grace who I may have been yesterday.

In an almost pensive anticipation, I look forward to meeting myself today exactly where I am – flaws, and fears, and feelings, and all. An anticipatory self-acceptance I don’t always – or even often – feel.

Hello! How are you? I greet myself in the morning mirror, pausing long enough to thoughtfully, mindfully, consider my answer.

Oh gosh . . . I think, I’m afraid. Afraid of so many things. But the future, mostly, I guess.. Yes, the future.

For him. For them. For us. For me.

For all of us, actually.

And as much as I want to push this fear away, a promise is a promise, so feeling how I feel is how I must feel.

There is a reckoning of sorts, allowing myself to be who I am. A piper who demands payment for the inner voice I’ve not listened to lately, all the regrets, the procrastinations, and now, the pretense of living each day as I always have – – despite my very real belief that so much I thought I knew is falling apart.

Still and all, who I am today is a woman who loves fiercely, lives a little tentatively, and worries endlessly. Today, accepting me as I am must include all of the above and probably more.

Some prayer. Some faith. Some courage. Some hope.

momentary pleasures against despair

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

. . . a weekly grocery store bouquet of tulips (anticipating spring on our tabletop)

. . . a trip to the bookstore (treasures aplenty)

. . . candlelight (any time of day)

. . . folding laundry (into neat and tidy towers)

. . . playing in snow (so deep, it’s hard to get up)

. . . The Sunday Letter Project (already looking forward to this Sunday)

. . . dancing in the kitchen (when no one is watching)

. . . allowing myself dessert (especially ice cream)

. . . a clean kitchen (soothes a weary spirit)

. . . sunshine (hope found in a bowl of clementines)

one hopeful year

~ onehopefulyear ~ Leave a comment

While brushing my teeth this morning, I took – what I believe to be – my first deep inhale since Thanksgiving. I guess it’s only when stepping off the merry-go-round do I notice just how constantly I’ve been spinning.

It’s almost time to begin my next hopeful year and looking back just now, I see this will be my tenth year writing (and hoping) here on this blog. Ten years is a long time to commit to anything, really, and while my attention here is often sporadic, I do feel at home here and I’m always hopeful I’ll make it back more often. Maybe this year’s the year.

Because I do have high hopes for this next year and all the wide-open months to come in it. Despite – everything – I am looking forward. I’m ever more self-aware of what I need, want, and hope for. Sitting here on the back end of December I’m dreaming dreams, setting intentions, and making space for all those needs, wants, and hopes.

Maybe there is no greater hope than that found on January 1st, but I’m looking for hope each and every day of this next year. Day after day. One day at a time.

Today’s hope might be all I really need.

saturday hope

~ onehopefulyear ~ 4 Comments

This morning, I rescued my room from a week of comings and goings, fragmented attention, and a too-tired reckoning of I’ll do it tomorrow. All my best intentions and plans and ordinary habits set aside out of necessity – there simply wasn’t enough of me to go around.

It was a week of life-long held mantras: one day at a time, this to shall pass, first things first, and do the next right thing. Phrases borrowed so many years ago, I no longer know who spoke them or wrote them – I know only of their wisdom, their shelter in the sometimes-storm of everyday living.

How lucky am I to have a husband who knows something about buoyancy and friends who bestow patience like chocolates on a pillow when I most need to rest. This week, I’ve learned how hope arrives in an unassuming cardboard box delivered on the front porch and addressed to me – a reminder sometimes dreams do indeed come true.

So this morning I’m delighted by the sunshine through the bedroom curtains and the pile of pillows on the bench. I move this here, that there, and tuck all the stray bits and pieces of a life well-lived into the laundry hamper. Soon my shoes will line up straight back in the closet, and I’ll thank them for helping me stand upright and steady.

There’s hope still in the anticipation of who’s visiting this afternoon, what I’ll be creating next week, and where I’ll be traveling soon.

One day, one hope at a time.

pause

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been watching hummingbirds.

So busy. So active. A blur. A burst. A vibration. A purr.

Effervescent.

I hear them before I see them, as their hum precedes their presence.

And it is only in their pause I am able to admire their glory.

Sip. Pause. Sip.

Sustenance.

I consider my pace of living.

Only lacking the iridescent patch of green at my throat (and the pause,) I am a hummingbird.

Always more to do, do , do.

Where’s the pause? Where’s the sustenance?

The pause for beauty. A pause for peace. Contemplation. Gratitude. Hope.

It is in the pause the hummingbird sustains itself, sips on enjoyment. Breathes.

A pause in the effervescence to notice the iridescence.

A pause to Be.

Still.

Nourish

and sustain.

who am i

~ onehopefulyear ~ 3 Comments

Who am I today?

Which woman will I be today?

Maybe I’m the woman who faithfully drinks her water, walks the recommended steps, and picks up her book instead of her phone.

Maybe I’m the woman who naps. Or the woman who cries unexpectedly. The woman who loves to bake, aspires to paint watercolors, and reads poetry.

I know I’m the woman who loves deeply, bruises easily, and fears being faulted – for anything – anything at all.

It’s quite likely I’ll be the woman who never quite reaches her goals, who always just misses the mark, who never quite meets the impossibly high expectations she holds for herself.

She often shows up.

But I’ll try not to be the woman who complains. Who criticizes. Who’s impatient.

Instead, I’d like to be the woman who’s grateful. Humble. Hopeful.

And kind.

For sure and certain, today at least, I’m the woman who writes.

catching my breath

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

look for me

gathering my thoughts

somewhere on a shore,

under a tree,

resting quietly

after climbing the mountain of this year

you’ll find me out in the garden

watering hope

or plucking it fresh-grown

after nearly a year of dormancy

I’ll not so much measure time, as I’ll breathe it

Inhaling and exhaling my way through summer

catching my breath

holding myself still and

celebrating the feeling of full lungs

I’ll hope for sunshine

and revel in the nourishment of rain

one hopeful day

after another

a sewing project

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

I like to lose track of time.

I like to be so delightfully involved in what I’m doing, I couldn’t possibly pay attention to the sun’s rise or fall or the hands moving around the face of a clock.

My sewing project is an example. It’s a project worthy of concentration. Measuring. Cutting with precision. Pinning. Pressing. Measuring again. Stitching. (Perhaps . . . ripping … when necessary.)

Problem is, modern pasttimes distract me.

Through no one’s fault but my own, I’m not as able to concentrate.

When a was a kid, I remember my mother asking me, “If everyone else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you jump too?” And if she were to ask me today, in 2025, I’d probably answer yes because no matter what everyone else is doing, I spend more time on-screen than I’d like to admit.

Especially to myself.

I enjoy expressing myself on social media. And I love blogging.

What’s also true though is the fact that some of my best ideas come when I’m so immersed, I’ve lost all sense of self. It’s like I’ve escaped myself and find myself all at the same time. No ego. No identity.

Only pure thought.

I’m not sure being on-screen helps me achieve such a state.

As always, I suppose, it’s a matter of balance. A balance of off-line reading and learning with online research and discovery. Balancing relationships here and there. Signing off when I can longer hear myself think. And remembering to press pause once in a while to feel the sun (and cold wind) on my face.

It’s another hopeful year. I’m so glad to be here.