The Spaces In Between

For those who are new here: Every New Year, I try to choose a set of words to use as a compass to orient me in the new year. My previous words have been: breathe and lead with love (2014), trust and focus (2015), listen and flow (2016), space (2017), magic and connection (2018), joyful curiosity (2019), tender belonging (2020), fierce hope/soft resilience (2021),  delightful possibility (2022), sparks and embers (2023) and creative intimacies (2024). Each of these words has helped me think about how I want to show up in the world, and what I want to invite into my life. Each January I reflect on the previous year’s words, and share my thinking about my new words for the year to come.

Creative Intimacies: I loved these words for the year, and the ways they guided my attention to relationship building, as well as where I focused my energy in terms of art and creativity.

As I wrote in my 2024 review post, this past year was full of community building: on campus at Wells, with the Still Coviding community around Ithaca and Syracuse, and with our local Quaker Friends Meeting. Given that Indigo and I are still taking precautions to prevent covid infection, including masking with people outside of our household, we have sometimes had to be creative about gathering. I am very grateful for all of the friends who have been willing to mask with us, and/or meet outside, and/or take a test to make gatherings safer.

In terms of creativity, I completed several collages in my journals, and starting making rainbow collaged cards to send to friends. For Christmas, I made my family home-made paper craft gifts, making little foxes and owls out of toilet paper rolls and decorating them with cut out pieces of paper, and also making snowflakes out of cut toilet rolls and hot glue.

Rest, and Roots: When talking about my 2025 words, Indigo suggested the word rest, and I initially rejected it. I do want and need rest! But I wasn’t sure that it was the right fit, and I was stumped in terms of what word to pair it with. I also wondered if “rest” was going to be a word that I needed to carry with me for an entire year. However, when I went back to my 2023 post “Sparks and Embers,” I saw that my second choice for words that year was “rest and roots.” While ultimately those words didn’t feel like a good fit for 2023, they now feel like a perfect fit for 2025.

Rest will help me remember to take care of myself in the midst of life’s uncertainties, political chaos, mental health struggles, and capitalist pressures. This summer I have been struggling with depression, which ultimately is my body telling me that I need to slow down and rest and heal. Rest is an important part of caring for ourselves, and also a crucial part of social justice organizing.

Roots can be shallow, or deep, new or old. I want to continue deepening roots in my local communities and friendship circles. I want to explore different places I can set down new roots, and be open to new possibilities and new places to grow.

Writing here has been hard the last few months, but I finally finished my 2024 Review post, so I am ready to post this one too! It’s almost August, and I can say that so far these two words have been really good ones to carry with me, and that I think they will be useful until the end of the year, which will be here before we know it.