focus

~ onehopefulyear ~ 2 Comments

I discovered a pint of strawberries in my teacher book bag last week – an entire day after grocery shopping. I have no memory of placing them there, nor did I notice them missing from their usual spot in the fridge.

I guess I just wasn’t thinking.

Or I was thinking — just not about the groceries, or specifically, the strawberries.

I’m sure the strawberries are symptomatic of a lack of attention. Day by day I notice my fragmented focus — living as I do in an increasingly fragmented world.

There’s simply not enough of my attention to go around.

In 1971 American spiritual guide, Ram Dass, published a book entitled Be Here Now. I’ve not read the book, but I’ve read some of his teachings and heard the title phrase used by others. And if that phrase were a piece of clothing I could wear, I’m sure it would fit me just fine. Today. Now.

It’s a practice, I think. The practice of living each and every moment on its own and for its own merit. Being and breathing and living exactly where I am … and who I am. Hopeful or not. Here now is exactly when and where and who I want to be.

I’d like to gather the fragments of my mind and my tattered attention and focus my way to whole again.

I’d like to remember what I was going to say before my own thoughts so rudely interrupted me. I’d like to reclaim linear thinking and conversation, so I pursue a topic from beginning to end.

I’d like to put the strawberries away — where they belong.

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.

time is of the essence

~ onehopefulyear ~ 4 Comments
Nana’s watch

spend time. save time. waste time.

time management.

take your time. make time.

me time. free time.

lifetime.

too much time. never enough time. need more time.

time alone.

time flies. time stood still.

on time. just in time. in the nick of time.

daytime. playtime. nighttime. bedtime.

timeframe. timeline. daylight savings time.

springtime!

quiet time.

full time. part time. sometimes. one time. all of the time.

time after time.

pastime. pass the time.

next time.

once upon a time.

Word play. One of my favorite ways to write. This word play was inspired, obviously, by the word TIME. Start with any word. Write with that word as the focus. See where your writing takes you. Play around. Move this. Change that. Add. Delete. Do-si-do one word with another.

Stop when you have nothing more to say.

Enjoy! Or should I say … have a good time!

data

~ onehopefulyear ~ 5 Comments

I discovered this morning my watch now measures the amount of time I spend in daylight.

In addition to this new feature, I’m able to access up-to-the-minute functions of my health: my blood oxygen level, how steady I am while walking, the rate at which I climb stairs and how many flights I’ve climbed, the duration and quality of my sleep, my respiratory rate, and my heart rate under a variety of conditions. Among other useful health data checkpoints.

But what I ask myself most often is … how do you feel?

I’ve been keeping my own sort of data. Little colored hearts on a calendar. Each color a measure of how I feel upon waking. Do I feel calm? Anxious? Rested? Happy?

I am (and feel) more than the sum of my data. And if I’m honestly able to answer how I feel, I’m more likely to ask and answer the next question … Why do you feel this way? And the next … What will you do about it?

These are important questions for me to ask and answer.

I know the health data my watch provides is helpful, and even necessary as I monitor a heart condition. And for the record, I’ll try to spend more time outside in daylight today than I did yesterday.

But my watch provides no measure for hope.

That’s one data point I’d like to keep track of on my own.

becoming

~ onehopefulyear ~ 7 Comments

I thought I knew myself well. Really. I’ve lived with myself all my life, for goodness sake. By now, I should know how I feel about most things, how I’ll react to others, and why.

And maybe I do, mostly. Until I don’t – occasionally.

As it turns out, aging is one more evolution of me.

I’m becoming. Again.

And I think – this time – I’m observing myself more carefully. This process of becoming is fascinating and exciting and (at times) a little anxiety producing. I’m not sure what me I’m moving toward and with no real goal in mind, not sure where I’ll end up.

I am my own experiment. An emotional experiment. A social experiment. A physical experiment.

When forming a hypothesis about myself and this me I’m becoming, I often wonder about the women who came before me. Who they were at my age. How they felt. Their emotional struggles. Longings. Loss. Dreams. Fears. Hope.

Maybe it’s only as simple as only now owning most of my time. So as to listen to my thoughts. So as to understand exactly how I feel. Learn who I am underneath all the roles I’ve played thus far: daughter, granddaughter, student, wife, mother, teacher, friend.

Become me.

All over again.

today’s forecast

~ onehopefulyear ~ 4 Comments

Foggy early.

(I didn’t sleep well last night.)

Giving way to a mind-clearing, mid-morning breeze.

(Write. Photograph. Plan. Dream. )

Full-sun by midday.

(Get outside.) (Get stuff done.) (Find fun.) (Play.)

Colder air moves in late afternoon.

(Wrap up the day. Catch up the day.)

(You go first. No, you.)

((How was your day?))

Star-sprinkled clarity early evening, followed by moonshine late.

(Tuck in, count blessings and stars, hope.)

Fair skies predicted come morning.

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.