More and more I have come to admire resilience.

Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam

returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous

tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,

it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.

But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,

mitochondria, figs — all this resinous, unretractable earth.

I saw this posted on Instagram by Maria Popova, the founder, writer, and curator behind BrainPickings. Her work is amazing – she published a book last year – and her insights often bring me to new thoughts at just the right time. While not all of the newsletters speak to me, most of them do, and I look forward to her twice-weekly emails for the ideas and thoughts they generate for me.

I finally did the “trendy” thing and chose a word for the year – and for 2019, it’s going to be

Seek.

I toyed with the idea of grow, again. (I’ve used that in the past.)
Explore was also up there.
But exploration, while it can be used to describe what I call “inner work”, seems more focused on external explorations.

Seeking can be internal, external, spiritual, physical, emotional… I can seek adventure, but I can also seek positive relationships for where I am now in life.
I can seek a community, spiritual growth, new ideas, new knowledge.

And Jane Hirshfield’s poem highlights, for me, how I want to focus my life, and my seeking, this year.

I want to become more resilient, more tenacious, more persistent.
I don’t want to always hew to the path that I’ve chosen – sometimes, seeking, and resilience, tenacity and persistence require a new approach, a twist and a turn here and there.
But always, moving forward.
Seeking. Maybe not the way I anticipated doing so at the beginning, but still moving and driving and growing.

I love the line “…the sinuous tenacity of a tree”

Perhaps I’m not sinuous, necessarily, but tenacity? that I have.
We’ll see what my path – my branches? – look like at the end of 2019. Who knows what the new year will bring? Time to seek…and know. 

The present moment is the only one that matters…We have the choice to let go of worrying about the past, and instead, focus on the present, and the things we do have the ability to change.

Letting go isn’t about having the courage to release the past, it’s about having the wisdom to embrace the present. Steve Narbone

Try some healthy idleness… JJ (Family Friend)

Idleness – the active choice NOT to do – is really hard. I always have to be going, going, going. Sometimes, though, I get what I consider to be a signal from the Universe that maybe it’s time to take a break. Slow down.

I know that it’s a cliche to slow down in the winter. To take advantage of shorter days, longer nights, colder temperatures. But this year, it is oh so tempting to disconnect. To take the time to breathe. When I think back on all the insanity of the past 3 years – two moves, three jobs, lots of upheaval in relationships and life – it makes me think that if I don’t disconnect, I will be forced to… whether by illness, or some unanticipated significant event.

So, perhaps I won’t work a full day Monday (New Year’s Eve). Maybe tomorrow I’ll take the time to do my (fun) errands, enjoy a lunch with my mother in law, and take a nap. Because you know what? It’s okay, sometimes, to just sit. It’s okay to stare out the window without a purpose. It’s okay to NOT follow a set schedule or list of tasks all the time.

Healthy Idleness. What a concept…

I have been struggling with this recently, this feeling of needing to be something else, someone else, to meet the expectations of others.
And yet, I also know that I need to become comfortable with owning who I am, what I am, how I live, and what I value.

What do I want to be?
What do I need to do to achieve that?
And then, what will I have?

This be-do-have approach was something my therapist (yes, therapist, I finally have a good one…) really emphasized at our last meeting. And it resonated so, so much with me.

I want to be happy. I want to be independent and strong again. I want to live my life without apology, with joy, seeking new experiences and the beauty in the everyday.

And I keep coming back to this awful thought – is this possible within my current relationship? This wasn’t intended to be a “relationship blog” but it is foremost in my mind right now.

When I am constantly challenged by the person who is *supposed* to love me as I am, to accept me with all of the changes and challenges and frustrations… well, how can I then be who I am? How can I, as Nin says, find peace with exactly who and what I am? because I am working so, so hard on that. And then to be brought down by one offhand comment, or a series of them? That makes me think that I am not being loved as I am.

I’ve never read Anais Nin. Perhaps I should start. Next up on my “inspirational” reading list is an Anne Lamott book. I’m also working my way through Seneca’s Letters to a Stoic. Short, overloaded missives full of wisdom, insight and ideas. Perhaps reading some Anais Nin will help me continue to broaden my perspective and think outside of my narrow little box.

Then again, Goodreads describes her as an “eroticist”, so… perhaps not. 🙂 I’m all for challenging myself, but maybe not to that extent, just yet!

A related quote to end on… from a wise friend: