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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The daily news hangs heavier and heavier in my heart. Day after day. After day. Each notification, each headline, tweet, and post adds to me feeling powerless. There’s an ache in deep parts of me that never quite recedes. Honestly, I’ve been feeling more hopeless these days than hopeful. There’s no recourse in the short-term. No way to help or stop or become part of the solution. Because the problems – and there are so many – feel too big. Too insurmountable. Too often entirely out of my control.
Still, there’s no giving up is there? No giving up for the people who minute by minute struggle far more than I do. No giving up for the planet and the people far younger than I who’ll need to live on it longer than I will. The list is long, the worries are many, the fear, ever-present.
It’s imperative to stay informed. The need-to-know has never been more crucial. Reliable information helps inform my vote, my financial support, and my prayer.
But I need some good news too.
Have you any? Good news, I mean. Have you any good news to share?
Flowers blooming? Gone for a bike ride? Found a friend? What made you laugh? Who did you spend time with? See something new? Different? Unusual? Did your daughter make the team? Your mom come to visit?
What moved your heart? Please. Share.
I wouldn’t want you to think any of this good news sharing neutralizes or diminishes the serious state of our country and world.
But it may help keep us sane. Or more open to possibility, ideas, action … and hope.
I just saw my son for the first time in almost three years. Mother’s Day was magical. Our electric bill went down this month. The peonies and lilacs are just about to burst.
And yesterday afternoon … I saw an owl. Up close. Its head on the swivel as it’s known to do. Eyes alert. Focused. Full circle aware of the world all around. Ready and on the hunt for some sustenance.
I have so many writing ideas when there’s no time to write.
Truly, I have ever so much more to say once upon a work day, and despite my whenever I have day off intentions, I hardly ever follow through. I’ve netted many a willow wisp of an idea in the hour or so before my shift starts, but I live onward in the day and in the days after that without looking back to whatever thought I captured.
I have to believe if I had something important to say, I couldn’t help myself but say it.
Still, ideas I’ve left unexplored feel like hopes neglected and a voice – my voice – ignored.
I’ll need to meet myself face-to-face at this intersection of what I say I want and walking what I talk.
I wonder why the commitments to myself are those I’m least likely to honor?
Hope is hardy though, especially and always in spring. If ever there was a time for new growth, this is it.
So look for me nestled … and writing … among the branches of the forsythia, anticipating the bloom of the lilac, my words, and me.
I’ve learned (recently) just how I write. How – I – write.
I used to think I needed a writer’s notebook to write. (To be a writer.) And I needed a room. Maybe a loft. Definitely a desk. Old. Wooden. Carved with someone else’s initials and scuffed at the legs. Funny the images I create. The people and personas I imagine. How one is supposed to write. Supposed to be. Supposed to live.
And none of them are me.
Who I am is a writer who writes in the morning while making the bed. While readying for work. Somewhere between brushing my hair and my teeth, I find my meaning. I write in come-to-mind phrases. Snatches of conversations I have with myself. Scraps of thought I may never sew together. A dropped stitch plucked up from some other day’s ideas.
Maybe my writer’s mind is free to roam while my body is otherwise occupied. Maybe I listen best to what I have to say while moving. Maybe it’s how I greet myself of a morning and find out what’s been on my mind all night.
I’ve taken to propping my computer open on my dresser. I stand there and write. Listening to my fingers find my words as they appear on the screen like some kind of sleight of hand magic trick tapping out today’s truth of me.
All of which is to say I am happy to find the writer I am and discard that draft of she I thought I should be.
A writer writes.
I’m an audience of one, hopeful to write and read whatever my words mean to say.
Browse your bookshelves. Listen. Pull what speaks to you. Arrange in a pleasing pile. Word by word. Title by title. Rearrange until you discover you in a stack of books. A bit of inspiration. A trove of delight. Hope culled from the books you’ve loved and lived with. Read top to bottom – or bottom to top. Write on your heart.
a year of weeks
365 days of wonder
chasing slow
daring greatly
becoming
joyful
simply living well
My thanks for today’s poem and life inspiration to Erica Root, R.J. Palacio, Erin Loechner, Brene Brown, Michelle Obama, Ingrid Fetell Lee, and Julia Watkins.
one hopeful year 