The Spaces In Between

Every year for the last 4 years, I have chosen a word that I want to carry with me into the New Year. Rather than making resolutions or goals, (although I do that too sometimes), this practice is about choosing a feeling or hope or desire that will help define my life and be a companion for the year. I have learned to be careful about what words I choose, as I detailed last year in regard to my 2017 word “space” (and as a friend often talks about in regards to her choice of “vulnerability” one year). I have also found it easier to choose two words, as I think they balance each other out, and I have a hard time choosing just one.

In the past my words have been: breathe and lead with love (2014), trust and focus (2015), listen and flow (2016), and space (2017). Often my words have been about becoming more mindful, listening to my body, trusting myself, trying to move through the world with less anxiety. Each year, I have found comfort and guidance in my words, and it is a practice that has brought some interesting insights about myself and gives me a framework for understanding parts of my year.

My words for 2018 were magic and connection and they are two of my favorite “year words” yet. I feel as though I was surrounded by magic all year, but especially this fall after moving to Amherst. I have felt connected to the world in a deep way, as I move along leaf-covered trails, and watch my breath fog out in front of me, gaze at the lunar eclipse, and the stars high above the barn. I also felt incredibly connected to family and friends this past year, even with my move to Amherst, perhaps because of my move to Amherst. When you are separated by distance, you have to be more intentional about those phone-calls and catch-up moments, and snail-mail becomes even more special. While traveling in Europe in the Spring, I connected with old college friends, high-school friends, grandparents, and great aunts and uncles. And I have had the magical experience of greeting my loved ones’ babies earth-side this year, at only a few days, or a few months of age. There is nothing like the feeling of gazing into a newborn’s eyes, and holding their little bodies close.

I almost decided to keep magic and connection as my words for 2019 because I loved them so much, but as the New Year approached I started mulling over other words. One day I was talking with a friend about how I wanted to savor the rest of the time that I have in Amherst before I have to leave again in June. And I thought, hmm, that is an interesting word. Savor. To hold on to this moment. To consider the deliciousness of life. To linger a moment. While I don’t like the feel or look of the word itself, I love its meaning, and soon I began thinking about other words that are related to savor. Which brought me to joy.

Joy has been a contender for my yearly word before, but has never felt quite right. I think joy has been particularly hard for me to imagine in January when I am missing Fran, and in years when grief was a more active presence in my life, joy felt aspirational, and less possible. This year, it feels like my heart is singing often with joy, and I want to keep that feeling with me.

I want to keep finding joy in small moments; noticing the spray of turkey tail mushrooms on a rotting log, laughing at Pippin’s zoomies across a snowy yard, catching up with my friends in Minnesota and their toddler on a Facetime call, learning alongside my students in my Trans Representations class. I don’t know where life leads me after June, and I want to make sure that I keep the joy from this year in Western Massachusetts with me where-ever I may go.

I also hope that I can approach the unknown with curiosity, and not fear or anxiety. My love of learning and knowledge has always come from curiosity, a yearning to know the answer to why? how? what? I love teaching and learning and researching, and I am staying open to all of the ways that I might teach and learn and research in the future. One of my favorite poems is “Reassurance” by Alice Walker, which opens with this line, “I must love the questions/themselves/as Rilke said.” I often find myself repeating this, I must love the questions, when it feels like answers are hard to find.

So, for 2019, I am inviting joy and curiosity to be my companions for the year, and I have combined them into a phrase, joyful curiosity. I can’t wait to see what the year has to bring, and what moments of joyful curiosity await!

What words will guide you through 2019?