2016 stands before you,
its voice crackling "Welcome..."
The annual question is
poised on tongue tip,
loaded,
like a cuckoo bird
coiled for its midnight pounce...
“Welcome to [your life],
may I take your order?”
Let's say...
that Life
comes down to
eating words,
and the Question
of the moment
is simply:
“What's the word
for this year?”
Last New Year's Eve,
the Question went around the room,
and space was held as each person answered.
The thing is…..
I love words too much
to pick just one.
So I picked three.
I requested a
Voracious!
Insatiable!
Explosive!
year.
Whereupon,
my husband stopped breathing
and gripped his chair
and our friends consoled him
with pats of sympathy,
as his word of the year --
"peaceful"
was devoured by my
triple-word-value humdinger.
And...
guess what happened.
I ate my words.
I became my words.
My three words got under my skin
and cooked up my reality....
Voracious, I hungered for
MORE of every good thing!
Insatiable, I grew and grew and grew
as I gobbled up the endless spread
of friends, truth, and opportunity
being dished to me.
Explosive,
I GOT PREGNANT THREE TIMES!
In one year.
Yes, three.
Which means, yes...
I’m pregnant right now!
Two beautiful miscarriages and this
one rather fresh,
so-far-so-good,
itty, bitty heartbeat
and blossoming belly.
Plump evidence,
I would say,
of a rather voracious year!
It may seem like a small thing,
to pick a guiding word.
But only Words
can turn nothing into something.
Just try to create anything
without first hunkering down
to define it.
So for this year,
I’ve been placing my order,
down to the letter.
I realized it might be good
to pick some good weighty verbs
to balance out last year's
blazing adjectives.
I realized I do a lot of Being --
(I remember filling out a health questionnaire this year
that asked what my hobbies were.
I actually wrote:
"Nothing physical.
They all take place in the ether."
Like my 2 babies
that didn't really materialize.
So it's time
for me to become a
Human Doing for a while.
It's a year to
incarnate
substantiate
embody
&
deliver
more than ever.
I think of the saying:
"I give you my word."
The highest promise.
It is so sacred,
this choosing
and giving
and keeping
of
WORDS.
To be thoughtfully done for sure.
As my heroine Mary Poppins
sings about the
ultimate 14 syllable word,
warning,
“better use it carefully
or it could change your life!”
So with more sobriety than usual,
and less of last year's gusto,
I've pledged my intentions.
To bring to pass
this July baby
and my new business
Parent by Magic
which is already taking form.
That's my Word.
Deliver.
What are yours?
What are you planning to eat up this year?
Are you idling in front of an old menu,
or making your own?
If you find yourself corralled
into a line of indecisive minivans,
crawling towards a menu
you didn’t mean to choose,
fear not!
Resist the lie that you're compelled
to choose between
“more of the same please”
or
“that new over-marketed,
adjective-lathered
combo #7"
I have been known to wander
into drive-thrus by mistake,
and all you have to do is laugh and say,
“I’m sorry, I didn't mean to come in here! I'll just pass through, thanks! Have a great day!"
Then go find
what you really want.
p.s.
If there's nothing but the
oddest assortment of letters available,
you can always make
your own word for dinner.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
is particularly delicious!
Wishing you a belated
Happy All Things New Day
and a most
scrumptious New Year :)