hope

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.

start small

~ onehopefulyear ~ Leave a comment

Apparently, it only takes four mixing bowls and thirteen ingredients to lift my mood.

Scoop. Measure. Weigh. Combine . Stir.

Ingredients I control. An outcome I can manage. Actions that make a difference.

This morning my husband came in from the cold, snow, and sleet to a warm house and muffins just out of the oven.

One thing I can do for the benefit of another.

An action – a tiny teaspoon – toward making someone’s world better.

Mood lifted, heart engaged, soul encouraged.

Yes. There is work to be done. Start small.

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
― Edward Everett Hale

a habit of hope

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

As of today, I quit complaining.

My complaints, as I see it, fall into two categories: within my circle of control or beyond it.

Either way, I know what I put out, I’ll almost certainly receive in return. And isn’t it true? Fault-finding is habit forming?

Oh, I know it won’t be easy.

There’s a lot just now that feels worthy of complaint or at least acknowledgement that all is not as it should be. Says me. And make no mistake: I am waving no white flag. Nor am I accepting all things as they are without dreaming of what they could be.

But I do recognize I can be bigger than the sum of my annoyance. My discomfort. My disappointment. My anger. And I do know I can look for ideas, solutions, strategies, and alternatives so I can participate in problem-solving towards solutions.

I know – intellectually at least – complaining only adds to problems and contributes nothing meaningful toward their resolution.

This is a choice. A practice. A promise.

A habit of hope.

just lately

~ onehopefulyear ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been at odds with myself just lately. Many of my conversations, internal.

Maybe it’s a January mood. Maybe it’s a loss of hope. Maybe it’s cumulative and cultural.

Could be . . . everything – everything – feels just too hard.

It’s private. It’s personal. And, I’ll bet, not uncommon.

Or, perhaps, not unexpected given the state of the world.

There’s sorrow. Grief. And disbelief. Fear. Anger. And helplessness.

I suspect I’ve internalized a lot. Set aside a fair amount for processing someday other than today.

So what do I need for and from myself this day?

What does this day – and the people in it – need from me? Where is my time best directed? What is my emotional temperature? My social tolerance?

Do I need music? Silence? Fresh air? Solitude or company? Should I make something? Bake something? Sit, stand, walk . . . kneel?

I would like to be master of this day’s destiny – everything from how I will spend my time to how I’d like to feel. Perhaps today is not so much what I need, as it is about what I do not need.

Truth is, some things CAN (and maybe should) be put off until tomorrow.

Tomorrow. When the sun comes up … and maybe some hope also rises.

looking for hope

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

Early this morning, I looked for hope in the sky.

A chilled breeze ruffled and tossed and danced with our country’s flag mounted on a pole off the front porch.

The same breeze whispered through tall crowns of white pine and hemlock next door and hustled a lone, brown oak leaf across the street.

More than one plane rumbled overhead across the sky, its passengers oblivious to my witness below.

I think about hope this morning in such terms of sight and sound. I wonder, if I kicked off my slippers and walked across the still-green grass if I could feel hope there, grounded as I would be and finding my way across cold and frost and a bit of fear.

I had hoped to hear the call of geese, but this morning chickadees and crows called to me and anyone else who’ll listen.

Like a prayer, I silently promise to listen. Content with whatever hope I can find.