Category: Word of the Year
Saturday, Jan 7, 2017 | Art, Big Thoughts, Peace, Politics, Spirit, Stand, Word of the Year |
artwork by me, concepts by Iain McGilchrist
I will be brief, of necessity.
The concussion is taking its time to heal and screens seem to cause the greatest difficulty. Email is next to impossible, and I cannot compose at length on-screen; please excuse my absence here and elsewhere. In fact, I am approaching this as a gift rather than a curse, and I am writing often in my notebook, and drawing, and reading off the page. I am living offline. This could be a new year’s resolution. But I don’t do new year’s resolutions. Instead, I choose a word of the year.
Last year’s word was PEACE. I loved the word. I used it often. I needed it, but also I lived it. In a sense, my approach to this concussion has embodied my understanding of peace, as I’ve lived it. I haven’t fought what’s happened. I’ve been at peace (largely) with the changes it has necessitated. I’ve been grateful for many small wonders every day. For some reason — maybe concussion-related — I’ve been more sensitive to small changes in light and noise, in ways that I stop and appreciate. Today, I watched as the dim afternoon light that was falling across our dining-room table rippled in rhythm with a helicopter that was passing across the sky, out of my view; I couldn’t’ see it, but I could hear it, and I could see the pattern of its disturbance in the light.
Yeah, that’s probably due to the concussion.
My word of the year for 2017 is STAND. I announce it without fanfare, because the clock is ticking (literally; I’ve put a 10-minute timer on this post).
I’ve chosen STAND because it chose me. Here’s why, I think. This year ahead seems likely to be one that will call for protest, and for taking a stand. I am not brave, as I have said before, and this is not a natural posture for me, but I believe that as a writer and artist my work is to stand for something greater than myself. I believe that my stories, my efforts, must come from a grounded place, and that in order to create I must be solid inside myself “like a plant is solid in the ground.”
artwork by my 14-year-old daughter, words by Rumi
Time’s up. If you’re doing a word of the year, please share in a comment, below.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2016 | Adventure, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Exercise, Peace, Spirit, Word of the Year |
If I were to write a blog post today, I would reflect on the past five days of utter solitude, days during which I rarely spoke out loud; there were several days when I spoke to no one in English. I read, I noodled, I listened to podcasts and surfed the news, emailed Kevin, ate pretty good food, kept to a reasonably regular routine, wrote and edited the museum piece, and went for several runs and many more walks.
I was not bored.
I was not even particularly lonely, except for the morning when I woke up with a raging bladder infection. Good thing I carry antibiotics with me in case of such an occurrence. Yes, that morning I was lonely and in pain and felt far from home and prone to worst-case-scenario thinking, but even that morning, I understood that I was self-sufficient and knowledgeable enough to cope with the unexpected crisis.
During these five days of solitude, I haven’t been lonely, I haven’t been bored, and I haven’t been restless either, not restless of mind or body. The body has taken care of itself. I’ve gone for long walks, and finally on Sunday felt a twinge of anxiety that whispered — you need to sweat! So I went for a run, and ran and ran and ran on the beautiful trail, discovering only afterward that I’d gone nearly 9 km, the longest and least painful run in many many months. Today, I ran again, pushing even further as I could feel my body beginning to trust that it would be okay: nearly 11 km. How joyous it is to run without pain; I’ve been injured for so long that I’d forgotten the joy of pushing against the ordinary discomforts and limitations of a body being asked to run — breath, heart, muscles, endurance. Running with a chronic injury you feel all these limitations, but you feel also a terrible dread that springs from pain from a different source, pain that whispers, Are you doing yourself damage?
For the month of March, my theme was health. This month, it would seem natural to name my theme: travel. But strangely, I think instead it’s: paying attention. The theme has arisen because I am travelling, and also because I am alone. What I’ve been paying attention to are my own interests, whims, rhythms, appetites, and desires. How often in a person’s daily life does an opportunity like this present itself? I’ve fantasized over the years about going on writing retreats in the middle of nowhere, and someone told me about a retreat where you do yoga and ride horses (not at the same time) that sounded fabulous, and a couple of years ago my mom did a silent retreat that intrigued me. But the risks seemed too great (the risk of it being a waste troubled me), especially given the heavy load of responsibility I’d be leaving on Kevin’s shoulders while away. So I never pursued these ideas.
I didn’t pursue this trip, either. It just landed in my lap, and because it was work-related, I said yes.
I thought I was saying yes, in part, to a writing retreat. I was excited to see what I would make with all this free time. (And I’ve made something interesting and specific related to the Museum’s exhibit, but it belongs here, and will stay here.) Why am I not writing my new novel? I thought, as the week went on. I tried, but the words felt dead. Yet the words, here, in my daily meditations and on my blog, these words felt alive. They interested me. And so I’ve been writing after all, just not the material I’d pencilled into the schedule.
Something else happened as the week went on. I stopped panicking about what I was not doing. I stopped worrying about what I should be doing. I started paying attention to what I wanted to do.
I wanted to read. So I’ve been reading: a David Sedaris essay collection (which has a story set in Normandy, as it happens); Ali Smith’s brilliant novel How to be both that somehow merges the world of a 15th century painter with a British teenager from the now, and weirdly also happens to be a book about sitting and looking at paintings, which I did not know when I chose it for this trip; Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, on black bodies in Amercian history and the present, which challenged me, moved me to tears, and has inspired me to think differently about Dreamers and Dreams (and he’s going to be in Rouen THIS SATURDAY at the same bookstore where I had an event on Thursday, and I must figure out how to go, because, honestly, how is that even possible?); and now I’m trucking through Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert.
I wanted to write. So I’ve been writing. Mostly things like this. Scraps. Ephemera.
I wanted to rest. So I’ve been resting.
Most of all, it seems, I’ve been resting my mind.
It’s taken exactly 13 days of rest to recognize that I may already be writing what I’m supposed to be writing. I am writing what has come to me, which is all we can ever do, when we’re trying to make something out of what we love and believe.
Maybe, just maybe, I’ve been anxiously searching for purpose down dead ends, without seeing what is open before me. Wide open, like that field at the end of our street when I was a child in Managua, with its dusty path and matted grass and garbage and crumbling concrete walls — the place my mind travelled to when I wrote the phrase: open before me.
I will probably never be content, exactly, with what I’ve made. But maybe, just maybe, I can be content with what I’m doing.
xo, Carrie
P.S. Just thought of my word of the year: PEACE. Yes.
Monday, Jan 25, 2016 | Big Thoughts, Family, Meditation, Peace, Word of the Year |
My word of this year is PEACE.
Usually I test out a few words and make an impulsive final choice right before meeting with my WOTY friends. This year, peace was the first word I tried and it felt immediately right. Maybe it’s the way it makes me feel the instant I say or think it. Just to repeat the word peace makes my breathing a little deeper and steadier, seems to calm or comfort me.
The word peace seems connected to the state of being I described in my previous post, on my changing relationship to writing. I don’t want to suggest that I’m no longer anxious about what I’m writing, that I’m not scared sometimes when I write, that I don’t worry about what I’m making. I’m saying that I can feel those emotions and still sense beneath them a sturdiness of purpose and identity that feels solid or rooted, or whole. Maybe, I think, confidence and purpose pours forth from a place of peace.
I am also drawn to the word because pacifism is an important part of my faith tradition. What does pacifism mean, as a lived principle? I want to study how to make peace a part of my life and being. I want to reflect on the concept of peace—is it merely the absence of negatives, of conflict or war? Or is it, rather, the presence of something powerful, even in situations of conflict or distress? Yes, I think so. Peace exists underneath. It can be the source of something, or it can be a state of being. In my meditation right now, I’m exploring the difference between a state of mind that is created by positive thinking, such as “You can do this!”, and a state of mind that is not dependent on exterior forces or encouraging self-talk. It can’t be forgotten or mislaid. It’s just there. It’s like water flowing underground, or like a river that is always flowing. Peace like a river.
What I hope not to explore this year is passivity—an offshoot of the word peace. My intention is not to ignore or avoid conflict. I want to figure out how to address and acknowledge conflict, how to engage with different opinions and ideas, how to disagree without feeling threatened. How to let others be. How often do I choose not to speak my mind, or not to step up and engage, because I’m uncomfortable acknowledging that to do so would be to admit disagreement? It isn’t that conflict doesn’t exist, it’s only that I’m pretending it doesn’t exist. That is not, ultimately, a peaceful stance. It is a passive stance.
Here’s what I believe: Problems can’t be solved or resolved without some conflict, some clashing between different points of view, some emotional discomfort; it often feels easier to walk away, to ignore the problem or complain about it behind the scenes, without confrontation; and sometimes walking away is a measured decision, if we’re not prepared or strong enough for confrontation, or if the problem isn’t worth the risk of disruption to an important relationship. But if change is wanted, change is needed, change is longed for, it’s worth asking: How does change come about? What’s my part? All change is disruptive. It causes discomfort. This year, I challenge myself to engage, to disagree, to disappoint, to carry uncomfortable emotions, to take responsibility for my beliefs, and to express them from a place of peace.
Peace is a kind word. It’s a caring word. I think it’s a word that will take me outside of my own head and desires, and connect me to others.
This year, I’m going to rely on the strength of this word. It’s shaping up to be a year of travel, of new responsibilities and ventures, and of trying to keep my shit together while the whirl of our family’s activities and personalities, mixed with my own ambitions and desires, spins and dances and pulls me in many different directions.
Peace. Peace. Peace.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Jan 20, 2016 | Big Thoughts, Publishing, Spirit, Success, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
My word for last year was WRITE.
I wrote a lot. I’m not sure any of it will be published, although it does seem to have informed the project I’m working on now—its value is incalculable, in other words, and I think maybe that became the point for me as the year progressed. I wrote to understand why I write, and to be disciplined, and the more I wrote the more I understood that I love writing, and that I don’t need to remind myself to write because it is intrinsic to my being, it is how I create, most naturally, it is my chosen discipline. Maybe within this, by following and exploring this word, I allowed myself to write that which I didn’t consider to be publishable; I allowed myself to explore, to roam, to wander, to try, to experiment, to follow where led rather than pushing.
I did some pushing in the first half of the year; and the second half of the year, I’m seeing now, was quite different—I wrote a new novel manuscript in the first half of the year because I felt that I needed to; and when it was done, I saw that it wasn’t ready and I’ve yet to sort out whether I can ever make it ready, and so, for now, I’ve let it go. I let it go, and for the second half of the year I let myself write other things instead, things I suspected a publisher wouldn’t be interested in; I decided that my own calculations and guesses about a publisher’s interest didn’t matter, couldn’t matter, and that I needed to write what was welling up inside of me. And that’s been really wonderful.
Writing is my livelihood. But when I focus on its potential to earn me a living, it dies, somehow. I think that’s what I learned this year.
I allowed myself to be reacquainted, really fundamentally, with the idea that a writer is someone who, when faced with a blank page, does not know anything. (To paraphrase Donald Barthelme.) It’s terrifying; it’s thrilling. It means I don’t know what I’ll find, and it means I’ll definitely find a lot of things I’m not looking for, the value of which may not be explicit or recognizable. As hard as it is, I have to write even knowing that I may never write anything publishable, anything that earns money ever again. I don’t see that as a sad thing. It’s made me assess what I value, and how I assign value to the things that I do—how I spend my time.
Unexpectedly, I feel far more confident as a writer than I ever have before. Maybe because I’ve recognized that writing & invention through writing is intrinsic to my being. I’m less afraid of the scarce resources in the publishing industry. It doesn’t scare me to consider the possibility that I may never publish again, that there are no guarantees of success. I know and believe that what I’m doing has value—I value it. And I want to celebrate the wonderful words and stories of others. The success of other writers doesn’t feel like a threat to my own existence as a writer (we don’t talk about it much in this industry, but the professional jealousy that can arise from scrambling to secure scarce resources has corrosive potential on a personal level.)
I can’t explain this sense of calm and purpose. Will it stay with me? It may not, it’s true. I accept that change is eternal. But it feels like there’s been a shift over this past year in how I approach my writing, and the shift feels fundamental.
Next up: Word of the Year 2016. Stay tuned.
xo, Carrie
Friday, Jan 15, 2016 | Big Thoughts, Exercise, Friends, Girl Runner, Good News, Organizing, Soccer, Travel, Winter, Word of the Year, Work |
Today is slipping by. I am mapping writing adventures. I am arranging practice schedules and shirt orders for a soccer team. I am hungry. I haven’t eaten lunch. I haven’t left this office for hours. I’ve written nothing but emails, messages, reminders.
My Writing Adventure is completely full, with interest expressed in future Adventures, should I attempt this again.
I’ve been invited to France — to France! — this spring, to promote the translation of my novel there (details have not been confirmed, nor is this a sure thing, but the possibility exists). In the meantime, I have signed up for several mandatory soccer coaching courses. I have a public appearance this coming Tuesday at the Kitchener Public Library (“An evening with Carrie Snyder“), and other events booked elsewhere in February and March, April, May. We are planning a daunting family holiday. I want to go cross-country skiing with my daughter while there’s snow on the ground. My muscles ache from early morning workouts.
Yesterday, I read this article on my phone while waiting to pick up my daughter from a yoga class. It’s a light-hearted how-to article countering all of the inevitable new-year-new-me-resolution articles of this season: “How to be a moderately successful person.” And I sat in the car and wondered: Could I aspire to be this person? For serious? Something about the less-ness of it twanged a genuine longing in me.
I’m not complaining!! But wow. On some days, like today, like every day this week, I am overwhelmed by the ways in which I manage to fill up my life, the variety of activities and challenges I willingly, happily, excitedly sign myself up for. It occurs to me that I may be hiding from something — from the quiet and stillness of empty space and time. Am I hiding from the possibilities that exist in doing less, caring less, aspiring to less? Or am I, in fact, doing less by doing more, my attention too scattered to finish whatever book will be my next? Is all of this an elaborate distraction? It’s possible. But I love doing so much of it. I love being on the field with the kids. I love writing with other people, together. I love spending time with my kids in different contexts. I love the adventure of travel. I’ll admit freely that I fear inertia. I’ve been stuck before, I’ve been restless and lonely and bored.
Truly, I am not that, right now.
I’m looking forward to sharing my word of the year with you, as soon as I’ve had a chance to share it first with my WOTY friends. I think my new word relates to all of this, this swirl of activity and these swirling thoughts. Next post, maybe.
xo, Carrie
Friday, Dec 18, 2015 | Blogging, Coaching, Good News, Holidays, House, Lists, Meditation, Organizing, Soccer, Weekend, Word of the Year, Writing |
Holidays. We’re screaming toward them at breakneck speed and despite there being no snow yet this December, Christmas is coming. Christmas will come. I’ve ordered a turkey.
Accomplishments in recent days include: remembering to order a turkey; not forgetting to go to CJ’s open house at school; not forgetting to pick up AppleApple from yoga; and sorting through our mail pile (overflowing the ample basket in which we toss everything), and my kitchen pile (papers that are too important to recycle, but not important enough to tend to or file immediately). I also created a brand new file folder into which I put random professional items that need attention…eventually). I’m calling this my “Friday morning to do” folder.
It’s Friday morning. I didn’t do any of what’s in there.
Just saying. But at least I got the damn piles sorted.
I also finished marking and submitted my grades. Bittersweet, but there it is. Done with teaching, for now.
I’ve already found a replacement for my teaching energies (unpaid, however; if it’s unpaid, I will excel at it). A week ago, I was given the head coach job of my daughter’s U11 rep soccer “development” team (they don’t call it a “C” or “B” team, but that’s what it is). It’s her first time playing rep soccer, and it’s my first time coaching on the rep side. And I’m going to need a special folder to keep that part of life organized. Or a time slot. How to partition off the various sections of my life, so I can stay focused on whatever I’m focused on? I’d like to complete a few things, in addition to rolling along in the usual way, immersed in all tasks that have no end.
More meditation? Problem with meditation right now is that I drift off; meditation becomes nap time. Not kidding.
I’ve also been helping, to a small degree, to find and prepare housing for the refugee family our neighbourhood association has sponsored. But this morning, I’m not at the new apartment with some of the others from our group, who are cleaning and sorting and sewing; this morning, I’m cleaning and sorting at home, and then I’m going to spend a few hours with friends before racing off to complete a rather daunting list that must be done before our first Christmas begins: around 3PM this afternoon, with the arrival of Kevin’s family.
Why am I blogging?
Because in all of this remembering to do things, and creating lists, and flurry of emails and information and errands and doing and hopping out of bed and going to bed too late, I haven’t been chronicling. Maybe that’s okay; I don’t need to press publish on every last thing that happens. But I do need to write. I need to write.
xo, Carrie
