What’s Really New? If I was forced to pick my One Little Word for 2024 right now then it would be joy as that is something I have tried to prioritize in 2023, but have not always succeeded in making it a priority. Perhaps if I make it my guiding word I will be more successful? However, I still have a few weeks to decide on my one little word. What word do you think will best guide you in 2024?
What’s New? Today is Memorial Day and I’m struck anew by how this day of all days should be spent in reflection. Life is busy and challenging and often we are so busy just surviving that we have no time to reflect on the meaning and purpose of our lives but Memorial Day provides many of us with the time and space and ceremony to contemplate our responsibility to family and community. This time of year is also an important transition as so many educational institutions mark endings with graduations and promotion ceremonies and anyone with ties to education feels this transition. Memorial Day is also marks a season transition for many. Any of these events provides rich reason to pause and reflect on our future while honoring our past and those who sacrificed to provide us with a future.
Original: I think I have settled on my #OLW (One Little Word) for 2022, but I am not quite ready to write that post yet. I am still trying to rest and recover from yet another year of pandemic living and teaching and find myself unable to pick up and complete the half dozen blog posts gathering dust in my dashboard. I tell myself they will benefit from the extra time to marinate, but in truth I am just fried.
However, I do find it interesting to explore #OLWs of year’s past. Reflection is a natural part of the rhythm of the year as we hunker down in our darkest days and it feels even more right as we gird ourselves for yet another pandemic winter. I have been selecting a word to guide my thoughts and actions, both personally and professionally, for seven years now and I still find this process interesting and useful. My first One Little Word was Simplicity in 2015 and was inspired by Anna Gratz Cockerille of Two Writing Teachers and their “One Little Word” challenge. Anna wrote:
“A One Little Word acts a beacon, a guiding light, directing one’s way for the year. When you get inundated with all that life brings, this is a word that can help you know what deserves your YES, and what really should get a NO. The right OLW will help to focus your time and energy away from that which is making the most noise and toward that which you truly value.”
Anna Gratz Cockerille
As I note in my blog post at the time, Simplicity was an important goal for me. I have a tendency to overcomplicate everything. Seven years later I have made definite progress simplifying my life and my teaching, but this work continues to be a process with a lot of backsliding. Yet it continues to be a goal – especially now in these pandemic times when we are all frayed and overwhelmed.
My 2016 word was a natural progression from 2015’s Simplicity. Cool is both attitude and a way of life. It has been a journey to learn to ration my energy and my cares. There continues to be backsliding, but a huge part of this process has been surrounding myself with friends who help keep my priorities in order because I cannot be trusted to do this work all on my own. This word continues to be one of my favorite guidings.
Comfort and hope combined in my 2017 word: Light. I love the many layers of meaning contained in that one simple word – both beacon and transport. As my writing group enters the final third of our Advent Writing Challenge where we have moved from darkness to shadow to light I cannot wait to explore still more permutations in the fine detail that only poetry can inspire.
Of all my guiding word choices perhaps the one that I have followed most successfully has been 2018’s choice of Question. Questioning has made me a better person and a better teacher. Questioning has helped me simplify my life and stay cool (or at least cooler). It was a good choice then and now for me and one I hope others will consider.
Reading about my 2019 selection of Connect to guide my year brought tears to my eyes. Maybe it is thinking about the before times. Maybe it is thinking about all that is lost to the pandemic. Maybe it is just thinking about how difficult that year was for me personally. It turned out that trying to live my best life in 2019 was simply not within my control and it continues to be a struggle.
It is so difficult to not laugh bitterly, hysterically, at the word I chose for 2020. How could I know what 2020 would bring and how it would make it so impossible for me to Heal. And yet, in some ways it was healing because I had the immense privilege of sheltering in place with my husband and son and it gave me some much-needed space from my mother. The spring of 2020 slowed things down in a way that I needed even if life shifted to become progressively more chaotic and challenging as the year progressed.
My word for 2021 was Resist. It is tragic to consider how much has changed and how much has stayed the same since I posted that word less than 48 hours before a deadly insurrection was staged at our nation’s capital. At the time I was thinking about my responsibility as a comfortably white middle-aged woman, as a teacher, and especially as a writer. I have fulfilled my obligation to myself to continue writing. Finishing one journal with another more than half full. I have written little poetry since LexPoMo in June 2021, but hopefully after Christmas I will find the capacity to delve into those journals to excavate some poems. I also have fulfilled my promise to “advocate and encourage and proselytize for the written word.” So many of my first year writers found or recovered their voices this fall and so many members of the Just Write virtual writing group have found inspiration and respite from our writing together and the invitations I’ve prepared. That is important work and yet I know the area that I must continue to work on is complacency. Not so much for myself (as I live in a constant state of dread about the future of our democracy and world) but the work that I must do to heal and connect and question our broken, fractured, and ignorant fellow humans. I made progress in that work with my students as we build community over shared values and stories, but I remain less certain how to reach my neighbors, friends, and family who have stopped listening and talking to anyone outside their silo.
The process of choosing your #OLW can be a wonderful transition from the old year into the new for you as a human as well as a teacher. Have you thought about finding your own one little word to guide your future? It can also be a powerful experience for your class community. I am excited to tell you about my One Little Word for 2022 and cannot wait to read about yours. Choosing one little word to help you chart the course of your life is an useful exercise whether you are flipping the calendar from one year to the next or marking a change of season. What time of year do you find it best to reflect and plan?
Note: My #OLW for 2022 was SPARK! Have you chosen your 2023 #OLW yet? My 2023 word is Perspective. Check out Nine Years, Nine Words, Four Poems for my one little word journey.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Image by Florian Pircher from Pixabay
