December 2017 Archives

25 Words

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Be careful what you wish for. First Italy, Vietnam, and China with Rob then triangulations among Kamogawa, Bangalore, and Ephrata. Always home and always homeless.

And all the 25 Word entries I've written since 2001:

2016
Half century joys: circus successes; drawing again; driver's license; warm neighbors; loving husband. Sorrows: multiverse branched and Zoupi vanished; my heart broke; mould ruined everything.

2015
A new era began with Japanese eijuuken and freedom to do anything! We quit Tokyo for rural Chiba. Now we have time, space, and ease.

2014
Our 25th anniversary. Eyes opened in Ireland and India to a new life together. More adventures, independence, inventiveness, alliances. Yes, yes! The ayes have it.

2013
Running away to the circus confused me. Spent ten months wondering "What next?" Tried resting, contests, midwifery - not my things. Travel, teaching, performance? Yes. Circus.

2012
Hooping took me up to Tohoku, down to Niijima, and around the world on tour. Ukulele, yoga, improv, songwriting, skating, visiting, & fundraising filled the gaps.

2011
Mother Earth trembled and futures fell apart. Uncertainty ruled us for months but in the end I'm still in Japan, married, hooping, and feeling happy.

2010
Lived my hoop dreams, wheeee! Connected, created, collaborated, choreographed, costumed, capered, camped, coordinated, but then crashed hard. Ouch. Healed and found my truth. Full circle.

2009
Rose petals in blue sky and the scent of muddy elephants conducted me to presence. An intense upwelling of joy revealed the universe inside me.

2008
I made dresses, meals, 100 necklaces, friends. Grew food. Witnessed a birth! I am greying, wrinkling and fading, but I started hooping, so who cares?

2007
Food ruled 2007: went almost vegan, developed recipes, and lost 10 kilos. Also sewed Morsbags, made political statements with robots, and explored Tokyo real estate.

2006
Forty was a pleasure/pain year - a roiling emotional sea. Heartbreaking anguish half drowned me but also un-dammed a flood of patterns, photography and creativity.

2005
This year, a lesson in
How to bear pain and loss.
Travel doesn't cure heartache;
Friends ease the agony.
Healing and peace flow like water.

2004
Did more, finished less.
Strengthened friendships and traveled.
Constructed 18 videos, knitted scarves,
Shared my pencils and my love.
Still seeking realisation of my principles.

2003
Hello Tokyo finally done
Neon Chopstix now begun.
'Twas mostly work but also fun.
Hosted friends from far away.
Another visa for three years' stay.

2002
Celebrating four years in Japan, I exercised my right brain and my poetic voice. I filmed then procrastinated. I waited for the axe to fall.

2001
Spent seven weeks on holiday in Maui, China, mainland US. Wrote lots, taught many, earned little. Saw the inside of my head. Didn't do enough.

Be 2018

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My guiding theme for 2018 will be Be.

It wasn't my first choice. I had a different word in mind this autumn and I thought it was just right, but I didn't write it down and I forgot it. Mustn't have been as compelling as I imagined.

Yesterday, I started over by browsing through the Qs in the thesarus. I chose Q because it has a pretty shape, but so many of its words are negative. Quux was tempting; it means foobar or whatever, which fits my inability to choose and I like that it has two us in a row. But I passed on quux because it also means "yuck" and also because I should try to choose a word that offers more guidance than "whatever." 

OK, fine. Based on activities of 2017, what word might guide me to a better 2018? Secure, keep, and settle came to mind quickly but they seem too passive, too stodgy. Something more active, then. I looked at a bunch of words like change and plan and they made me feel tired. So nothing too active. 

What about an emotion? Love is good, right? Peace? They didn't resonate. Neither did joy or happiness. These words are too one dimensional.

Somehow that led me to Be: fundamental and basic to everything. Lifecoaches smugly offer it as single word advice. Be shows up in loopy script on inspirational posters. We overuse it terribly in our daily writing. Have you ever tried to avoid writing "be"? I managed it in this paragraph, but it required many rewrites.

Perhaps Be will help guide me through changes in 2018. Whatever.

Here are my guiding words and themes for previous years:
2010, connect: https://mt.mediatinker.com/blog/archives/010736.html

The themes still seem to lag behind by two years.Though my theme for 2017 was Open, according to the lag I was likely to experience Explore instead. I certainly did explore a lot of things this year, though there were elements of Open as well. These theme words are vague like horoscopes; they can be interpreted in many ways. So let's see if 2018 focuses on Realise. I feel like it might, as I can see some decisions coming my way and I must realise answers to them.

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