One Little Word | scribblechic

sharing words

January 2, 2017 § 3 Comments

My daughter is sounding out her One Little Word. Each year I invite both children to join me in my New Year’s practice. Lending them printed pages with rows of words, I challenge them to read the words aloud, to strike through those words that fall flat and create space for those words that whisper recognition.

It is a treasure hunt of sorts, there is magic in scavenging tidy rows of words for suggestions of self; fragments of dreams we see only in our mind’s eye and private hopes, intimate challenges and new habits. More than goal setting, it is a mindset for the days to come.

Last night I came upon my daughter stretched purposefully beside her lists, red pen in hand, striking and circling with a confident flair. Her posture was the same form she uses for drawing and writing, painting and molding clay; her hands moving with the same certainty she shapes thoughts into art.

I looked over her papers, marveling at the key code she had created for her thoughts, the place her marks stopped, and the large circle where she explained her choice.

She landed on one brief word, four letters that held together four other words. I won’t share her word, instead I want to honor some of the words that framed our conversation at bedtime.

The first was seek, so that she might seek out new roads. The next two left me chasing down a pencil to guard her thoughts. Adding my handwriting to her own this is what I transcribed for my daughter:

“Self-love (means) to love who you are and don’t let anyone else say otherwise. Shine so that when other’s don’t feel like they are enough, I can reach out to them.”

Her last word lead to others and we fell into a conversation about the intricacy of our words, the impossibility of a singular choice and the subsequent supporting characters.

Whatever our words, I hope there will be many more late night ramblings. That my children will continue to allow me to guard their words among my own. To share traditions and explore new goals as we support one another in becoming our best selves; collectively and individually.

show up, surrender

December 31, 2016 § 2 Comments

Last year I choose Wholehearted for my One Little Word practice. It was the thread that bound my thoughts and actions to the quieter language of my heart. I listened more carefully, leapt more intentionally.

There were joyful permission slips and complicated choices. Some understood and where others left vacancies, beautiful opportunities invited change that blossomed into new relationships. It’s been a year of healthier boundaries and greater peace.

This year I found my new word tethered to last year’s promise, Mindfully. The two are almost inseparable in practice. After all, the heart and mind are old friends.

Unlike resolutions of year’s past, these words don’t demand lists; instead they insist on stillness of thought and intention of action. To show up and surrender.

It is a beautiful balance of holding on and letting go. Facing fears head on without distraction and making choices that resonate with a gentler certainty. There is no numbing, discomfort and joy are intimate acquaintances.

The year to come is filled with emotional family milestones and I want to welcome these complicated celebrations with mindfulness for their brevity. These moments are the material of gratitude or remorse, the difference is entirely of our choosing.

Just yesterday my children were babies; someday is a misconception, a beautiful distraction from today.

Of course, there are mechanics to the work of such stillness. Old habits and passive worries interrupt even the best intentions. I’m still learning how to get comfortable with the mess of now to invite the peace of presence.

I’m working on creating habits that nurture this choice and honors my values to better align my actions with my beliefs. In some ways, it is as simple as saying “no” when “yes” feels kinder. Telling an acquaintance that I would rather not connect on social media when I can get to know her in person, over stories and shared time.

It can also mean changing direction in the middle of a complicated trajectory; telling my son I think there’s another path when for years others have guided him in a different direction. Asking him to listen to his heart means modeling that truth with my own actions; those interests and forgotten heart songs.

Some days, it is mundane. Exercising when I would rather escape into a book or resting when the laundry demands attention. More often the magic is in small moments, afternoon dates after sixteen years of marriage and listening to my children rather than informing their choices.

I’m still learning how to balance the woman I aspire to be, Mindfully and Wholeheartedly.

pace, rest, joy

September 25, 2016 § Leave a comment

This year my One Little Word has been an active exercise in mindful balance; a bending and flexing of conscious intentions. More than years past, this year the monthly directives have complimented the serendipity of my life’s change with invitations to greater presence.

Designed by Ali Edwards, the guided monthly prompts keep me more firmly tethered to the spirit of my New Year’s Eve’s wishes. September’s assignment directed me to consider the pace of my days, the space of rest, and celebratory acknowledgments of simple joys as they pertain to my chosen word: wholehearted.

The timelines of this prompt allowed me to reflect on the day-to-day experience of my family’s adjustments as I stretched beyond familiar routines to embrace new experiences outside our home. I’ve shuffled priorities and adjusted my expectations, created new rhythms from old routines.

The pace of my days has been unhurried and intentional. I’ve taken comfort in the predictability within my priorities; I’m utilizing my time more productively, but I’m also resting more intentionally. I’m grateful that our schedule as a family was calm enough to incorporate change without toppling our collective patience even as I recognize that we are in the honeymoon phase of change.

For now there is still time enough for the quiet cup of coffee before sunrise and a simple homemade breakfast. My husband and I still cherish the short walk to the bus stop to see our children off to school. At this moment change has been less a sacrifice and more a reorganization of existing responsibilities.

I no longer indulge in late nights between pages of a new story or lengthy morning bike rides. There isn’t time enough to write in the familiar hours with reckless disregard for time. Instead I am making time intentionally for those beloved interests, while spending less time drifting between errands. Gone is the urgent impulse to move, in its place is a physical contentment with mid-day stillness as my thoughts chase new ideas over temporary distraction.

If rest is as much about nourishment in activity as it is replenishment in sleep, then joy is an old friend and a new awareness.

I’ve found greater joy in existing practices at home and discovered happy surprises at work. I like the simplicity of my tasks at the library, the sense of accomplishment in measurable goals. I’m remembering how rewarding work used to feel; the purposefulness and appreciation of a task well-done the same way I’m savoring my children’s curiosity and pride in my new adventures.

Joy is also countless small things with little rhyme or reason.

This month I’ve celebrated the crunch of early autumn leaves and late summer sunshine, birthday cake and sappy love stories. I’ve delighted in a friend’s remembrance of my childhood love of elephants and the sound of other friends singing to my voicemail. New classes and weekend dinners with old friends.

September has been a month of happy celebrations and everyday moments bound by joy and mindfulness. Even as the days shorten and the air turns cooler, I am holding the lesson of this month close as we usher in Autumn’s traditions and Winter’s holidays.

sweet spot

January 10, 2016 § 5 Comments

There may be no truer photograph of my personality; my proximity to delight and transparent guilt. Arms in a gesture of surrender, wide eyed eagerness to please. I love this photograph for its unfiltered honesty.

I have refrained from sharing photographs here, partly in a conscious effort to craft images with words, but also to honor a measure of privacy given the intimacy of my musings. This year, I am hoping to engage personal photographs as a part of my One Little Word. To exercise wholeheartedness with a new gesture of trust.

2016

December 30, 2015 § 1 Comment

This year my One Little Word® came to me in the shape of letters that formed almost unbidden beneath my pen. Each letter stroked seamlessly in a single wish.

It is a promise to recenter myself in presence and passion that I act from a place of intention and gratitude for the richness of each day; a recognition that in the complicated, imperfect mess of everyday demands there is grace enough to create a legacy of love and purpose.

December 28, 2014 § 9 Comments

The word itself is childish in its implied excess; greedy and passionate, clumsy and jubilant. The sound rolls against my tongue, my lips rounding with delight as the thought curls into a promise of possibility teasing my attention.

My natural tendencies are inclined toward less. I am most comfortable in minimal surroundings, content on a quieter path. Even my habits are unexceptionally unburdensome; my intimacies few, my possessions unextraordinary, my commitments few.

It is strange how chance wedges a suggestion into the unexpected until our thoughts lend roots that we might blossom into action. In my effort to choose a word for the year to come, a word has, perhaps, chosen me.

Just as I might number resolutions for self-improvement into a promise, in naming the year I first seek areas of growth and sources of inspiration in search of a theme that will tether me to conscious intention. Some of my goals are familiar in their failed fruition, others fleeting in their entrancement.

This morning I gathered a list of words, pages of suggestions printed in tidy, unassuming rows that I then read aloud; sounding out each word for resonance. In years past I might stike a line against those words that fell flat against my ears, circling those that kindled a spark within the recesses of my emotions. This year, my pen began scratching tiny addition symbols in the empty margin between rows as certain words begged my attention. Rather than whittling my list to a singular intention, my choices multiplied into a wish for more:

Balance, grace, intention, listening, ownership, play.

One of these words alone would bear a cumbersome responsibility to sustain across the span of a year. Too many words might tempt a fractured attention with broken results. Instead I am considering threading words and days with a message of more; assigning direction to seasons and inviting unanticipated opportunities for more without sacrificing an appreciation for less.

I am certain only of the spark behind the quick sketch in the margin of my words.

naming the year

December 27, 2014 § 4 Comments

The act of naming the New Year is a personal tradition that began in friendship, borrowed from another’s idea it has become a thread of thought that tethers my days to intention against the fullness of life’s daily distractions. Rather than resolutions, too fragile against the brittle stubbornness of old habits, I shape the year by first sounding out a single word that becomes a lens for personal growth.

Today I am scribbling possibilities with the elaborate scrawl of a child playing at their signature. Looping my thoughts around dramatic pen strokes and sounding out the New Year.

looking forward

January 22, 2014 § 8 Comments

In any community of thought, shared conversation or private musing, there is an invitation to wonder. Part of my exercise in embracing one word to guide the year ahead involved creating a space of meditative rumination so that my intentions might dwell in possibility. This year in an effort to exercise a greater self-awareness and consistency of intention I am using Ali Edward’s One Little Word program to guide me in monthly reflections.

Humbly and with an honesty born of a most intimate uncertainty I am sharing an unexpected fear. One line, an unpretentious prompt, has undermined my enthusiasm and sent me scuttering under the bed, flashlight in tow; not quite ready to own my fear but desperate to name that which I cannot hide from.

What am I most excited about in 2014?

The year ahead holds so many fears and worries. I have dressed my doubts in hope and paraded them through potential certainties, but I have not yet written on my calendar a place for anticipation; a day or activity that I might dress in excitement. Instead I have looked to the present and postponed my plans while shuffling maybes into predictions. Today I am looking forward, past uncertainties, that I might create reasons to invite Joy into the future.

choosing & claiming

January 2, 2014 § 4 Comments

Naming the New Year has become a tradition that travels over miles and connects me in spirit to the company of an old friend; a kindred soul who similarly seeks inspiration and growth in personal expression. Each year we gift the New Year a name that weighs our consciousness in accountability for our hopes, creates momentum with positive intention, and lends direction with clarity of perspective. It is an exercise created by Ali Edwards who crafted a movement of inspiration and a community of creativity around One Little Word.

This marks my third year naming the New Year. In the beginning the experience of choosing a word was intimate to my sense of self. My first year was a gift of certainty that arrived from recognizing potential in my struggle against uncertainty. In pledging to keep an open mind I embraced the word Open to guide me in my actions as I welcomed a year marked by change. The second year my word came from a place deep within and I could not shake its presence; Be formed on my tongue effortlessly inviting a stillness of presence that served me well this past year in moments of perseverance. This year my word came in my daughter’s voice, filling the silence with Joy.

Let me back up a moment to honor the story behind choosing and claiming this year’s word. In December I began exploring words, eventually testing possible choices in carefully constructed lists hoping to stumble upon a word that would speak to my heart. Unhurried I accepted the silence and revisited past words to map my experience. I immediately recognized themes of presence in past choices that honor my natural tendency toward reflection. In an effort to challenge myself with a new path I labored lovingly over a list of unfamiliar words, seeking the proverbial needle in the haystack. In the quiet morning hours on the last day of the past year, I read each word aloud sounding out a sense of self. I listed words I wanted to claim, beautiful words and uncomfortable words. On the eve of the New Year there was no one singular word that spoke to me.

Desperate and dutiful to the timeliness of this endeavor I looked to my family for inspiration. My husband sifted through words patiently and thoughtfully, choosing Embrace. The word resonated with familiarity and I pushed against its comfort. My daughter, without pause, said Joyful. In as much as I celebrated her perspective the word felt false in its exuberance. The certainty of my daughter’s voice was matched in equal measure by my unspoken uncertainty, but the disparity between our perspectives gifted me space to invite Joy to play a greater role in the year to come.

Embracing Joy felt like upending a box of crayons onto white paper and so I grabbed my pen and scribbled it against the emptiness of the New Year. My daughter’s voice spelling out a new challenge.

Where Am I?