notes to self

sometimes health

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

Sometimes health looks like going to the gym. Sometimes. But not today.

This morning, health looked slow and leisurely. A bit of reading. A bit of writing. Admiring the sunlight reflected on the wall. Sitting in silence. Counting blessings.

Sometimes health is doing the chore. Tackling the list. Holding myself accountable. Working late. Finding a way. Making the appointment.

Health is in the doing. And in the done.

Health could be brewing another pot of coffee and pouring it out in my favorite cup. Turning up the heat to take the chill off. Taking a nap. Or a long, hot bath.

Almost always I’ll find health outdoors. I know I’ll feel uplifted out there in the air. I’ll discover something that betters me. Happys me. Fills me with hope. Last night three deer crossed my path on the way home. And night before that, a boy two houses down sang his hallelujahs to the stars above. And me, his unknown audience in receipt of a gift he never knew he gave.

Health is found in the unexpected gifts I discover when I’m not looking for them at all.

Sometimes health sounds like music. Violins, maybe, in a certain kind of mood. Or music I can wear when I dance around the kitchen. Oh … that pure joy I feel right then is most certainly health.

Good health feels like the trust of relationship, the honor of marriage, the longevity of friendship. Good health is in giving. A bouquet of flowers. A good listen. The holding of hands. Sharing a meal. Sending a card.

Good health is knowing what I need and bypassing what I don’t.

Good health is today. This morning, this afternoon, and tonight.

Here’s to you … and to your health too.

chasing light

~ onehopefulyear ~ 4 Comments

This time of year, I follow light around the house like a puppy after its best friend. I am sun hungry, and I measure rays stretched across hardwood floors and count minutes of daylight like coins in a bank.

It’s easy to feel miserly, hoarding each minute of light, a bit bitter at the hours of darkness.

Much better to feel grateful and celebratory for the minutes I have. To delight in howsoever I choose to spend them.

I sit on the porch, cupping my tea, on watch as the sun recedes from view. Wrapped in a blanket against the increasing chill, I’m basking, sun on my face. Today’s last rays a deposit I took the time to make.

The light of faith and hope and prayer notwithinstanding, It is up to me, I think, to find my own light. Make my own light. Be my own light.

Live the light.

and so

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

I have missed writing.

The scratch of my pen on paper. My cross-outs and do-overs. Arrows moving lines I’ve written up or down. Reading aloud to my husband before I hit publish.

Writing quiets the clamoring, broken, and frightening world around me. Almost and only when writing am I able to hear myself think.

I have only recently connected dreaming with doing. Sometimes doing must be scheduled – in pen – as are doctor appointments, duties, dates, and dusting. Making time for what matters requires its own kind of focus, a conscious relocation from the bottom of the list to the top.

There’s need for determination. Hope. An awareness that what feeds my soul is at least as important as what I feed my body.

And so I’m writing again.

It’s been scheduled.

stress

~ onehopefulyear ~ 4 Comments

My stress brain tells me I have to do it all now. (I don’t.)

My stress brain tells me it’s impossible. (It isn’t.)

My stress brain tells me I can’t. (I can.)

My stress brain reminds me of past failures. (I’m looking forward.)

My stress brain says, “You probably shouldn’t.” (I will.)

My stress brain tells me I don’t have enough time. (I have plenty.)

My stress brain tells me I’m not enough. (I say, “I most certainly am!”)

My stress brain tells me it’s hope-less. (I am hope-full.)

evolution

~ onehopefulyear ~ 4 Comments

Do you ever find yourself – feel yourself – transforming before your eyes?

(And by yourself – of course – I mean myself.)

Perhaps it’s a slow recognition. Or a sudden realization. What used to matter, doesn’t. New things – new ideas – do. Or maybe it’s a chance encounter with a new version of you. Maybe after many long years of becoming – you finally do – become, that is. An evolution of all the yous you used to know, used to be, or used to define yourself as. All together, all of you, gathering in one room.

Maybe suddenly you understand how (and why) to walk into today with exactly the person you are right now at this morning’s moment. Open to and energized for whatever you need, want, wish, dream, feel, hope, imagine, and choose. Maybe today’s the day you remember what’s good for you and proceed gently, lovingly, respectfully.

Or it could be the new knowledge that today’s steps, however small they may be, will lead to tomorrow’s and whatever’s next. That life is about building – and sometimes tearing down and starting over – but mostly building on all of the people you’ve been.

Or maybe you just got a good night’s sleep and you feel simply more capable in your own skin.

Rise and greet who you are.

(And by you – of course – I mean me.)

in a winter garden

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

In a winter garden, I plan next season’s plantings. Reflecting carefully, of course, on last year’s harvest.

Now is the time for imagining the ideal. The time for optimistic enthusiasm before the rolling up of sleeves and the dirt of hard work and effort and hope collects under my fingernails. A season of dormancy. A renewal of strength, purpose, and spirit.

In this season of life and living, I’ll determine what’s important to plant. Which fields in my life to let lie fallow in rest. There’s preparation to be done. Research. Trust. Faith in the future. A belief in the cycles and pace of my own nature. Knowing the truth that all is as it should be: living in the cold, wind, and darkness of winter as necessary precursors to light, warmth, and germination.

I winnow through expectations, weeding out what I’ve got to let go. Sow starter seeds, watchful for what takes root. Which seeds prosper? Which seeds – promising as they may be – were never really meant for my own little patch of soil? Some seeds, I know, only sprout after repose.

How will I nourish myself? Gather strength? Coax growth?

In a winter garden, I reap what’s happiest in today, hopeful tomorrow’s garden will grow in it’s time.

in thanks

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

When I open my eyes each morning, I will open my heart as well and begin with thank you.

When the list is long, and I’m not sure what to do first, I will start with thank you.

When life feels impossible, or heavy and hard, I will remember the ease of being thankful.

When I think I can’t, I’ll know I can. And feel thankful.

When I’m worried, may gratitude take me under her wing in comfort and hope,

When jealousy whispers all I have not, may gratitude sing joyously of all I do have.

When the day slows and darkness returns, may I find my heart open still and end with thank you.

here is my day

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

Here is my day.

What will I do with it? What attitudes and expectations will I bring to it? What goals, dreams, or ambitions do I have for it?

Or, shall I simply live it?

Come what may.

Life’s complexities are often of my own making – or perhaps my own participation. It’s likely, life’s simplicities can be mine as well.

Here in this day, may I be mindful of simple living. The choice of simple living.

What does this simple living look like? How will I know when I’m living it?

Maybe it’s in the noticing and then the appreciation.

Appreciating the burst of black crows against a blue sky. The prayer of a pair of leaves roadside. The ability to hoist my own socks after a debilitating few weeks of back pain. The first few flakes of snow adrift on a breezy afternoon.

A year’s worth of accumulated hope.

So is simple living walking one step at a time on the day’s path? Expecting nothing but noting everything? Delighting in each minute’s arrival and feeling grateful as it departs? In the moment, of the moment, and most especially . . . author of the moment.

How grand to watch the sun travel across the sky, taking great pleasure in the simplicity of being here to see it.

How glorious to greet the first star as night falls, grateful for living today and wishing on that star for a simple tomorrow.

7 minutes

~ onehopefulyear ~ 4 Comments

This is a quick write.

A seven minute writing strategy to prime the pump and get the words flowing. No judgment. No worry about clarity of meaning. No concern for grammar, or spelling, or punctuation. No expectations. Just pure, unedited thought from pen to paper or fingers to keys.

Set a timer and go.

Who knows what words will emerge as from an invisible ink magically made clear. Who knows what I will learn? What’s on my mind. In my heart? What are my words waiting to tell me?

I used this strategy almost daily as an educator. What a mind-opener it is for children. (And adults too.) Pressure evaporates. An invitation to write imperfectly routinely releases the most beautiful thinking, the loveliest strands of thought, comprehension, and connection. There’s so much power in this little bit of freedom.

And only seven minutes. The timer trills and they beg for more time. Every single time.

Always end your writing waiting for more, I’d say.

And then they’d share. (Like I’m doing now.)

Proud.

reminders

~ onehopefulyear ~ 4 Comments

Pen on notebook. Notebook under keys. Medication next to the sink, next to the soap I use to wash my face every night. (If I remember. Which I do. Now that my medication is alongside.) Moisturizer at home atop the dresser from which I pull my clothes every morning. A list of daily important-to-mes tucked nearby as I ready my face to greet the day. Just this morning, I dropped a single tissue on the stair landing so I’d remember to add tissues to the grocery list.

Whatever it takes. However to manage in this life full of never-ending and persistent distractions.

More than ever before, our home is organized, room by room, item by item, so each possession has a home, a place where I’ll know exactly where to find it time and again without a hunt and seek. Take it out. Put it back in the same place, over and over and over. And I’ve weeded our things. Fewer possessions to manage. If it doesn’t meet a purpose – function, beauty, meaning, memory – and won’t in the future, out it goes. I store like with like. I’ll find what’s needed where it’s most often used. Clear surfaces calm me, freeing my thought paths to help me remember whatever it is I almost forgot.

These days, I find hope – and comfort too – in the familiar, the known, and routine.

So, I set reminders. Reminders to do what’s good for me: a water glass next to the fridge. Reminders to meet responsibilities: a timecard left on my computer. Reminders for function: glasses on my book, lunchbox in front of the door, masks in the car. I own many too many notebooks – an organizational problem I’m helpless to overcome. Still, I love to list. And list. And list. There’s remembering in the writing.

I’ve even texted myself on occasions when I absolutely must remember to do something and don’t entirely trust myself to remember to do it. What about you? String on your finger? List on the fridge? Timer on the stove? My husband used an elastic band on his wrist. What’s sensible for me, might not be at all practical for someone else. I think I feel most successful when I find my own solutions.

If I’m to have any hope of managing all that’s on my mind and in my heart, strategies are necessary. If I’m ever to keep myself whole in an increasingly fractured world, I’ll need to remember – somewhere way down deep inside me – just what being whole feels like.