The missing piece

I've been doing December for a while now. We're past the half-way mark, past the solstice and really in the home stretch now. Just a few days left to go. Of course, it's been feeling interminable. Over the weekend, I got out a jigsaw puzzle and started putting it together. There is something very calming about jigsaw puzzles.

I'm sure someone has written their master's thesis about their neurologic effect. To me it seems obvious enough why they are satisfying: the visual skills that we honed through generations of gathering food, (seeking out shapes and colours that we recognized as "mushroom", "berry", "plant with tuber below", etc.), still enjoy hunting through the pieces for the shapes and colours that create a recognizable image.

A little 500-piece puzzle; one of many that I won at a penny auction
at the West Dublin Hall (several years ago now). 

I find jigsawing meditative. I can get into a Zen state where all I am thinking about are the colours and shapes. It's all about the edges – the shifts in colour within the design and the shapes of the pieces themselves. 

However, I don't always get synced up and become one with the puzzle. Jigsawing can also lead to rumination. And rumination is a double-edged deal. It can be dark and it can be light. I can think about things that take me to a place of grief or anger or disappointment; I can think about things that take me to a place of joy and uplift and excitement. And, as my therapist spent many hours trying to teach me back in the day, at its best, it's not either/or, it's AND. 

Thinking about gladsome tidings does not wipe out pain. And thinking about grief doesn't have to erase joy. Of course, holding both at the same time is not easy. Although human beings are capable of believing many contradictory things at the same time, we also have a tendency to pick one side of a dichotomy and stay there. 

I was on the dark side of December for a good few days this month. And I'm afraid that jaunty little jigsaw puzzle sent me spiralling further down. 

Until I remembered that the antidote for disconnection is gratitude. I sat down and wrote a list of all of the people I feel thankful for. People who taught me things (even hard things), people who helped or guided me, people who gave me gifts this year – gifts of connection and belonging, gifts of being seen, heard and accepted, moments, presence. 

There were 75 people on my list. And although I am still feeling sad and I am still wishing December was over, I am also holding that I am a very fortunate person to have so many people and moments to be grateful for — and to know it. 

It's both.

It's all. 

(And December is almost over. THANKS BE!) 

Long December

Every year, I wish the same wish – that I could go to sleep on December 1 and wake up on December 31, just in time to welcome in the new year.

Sometimes, December feels easier and sometimes it feels more difficult.

I know there are things that I can do to make December better for myself. One of them is blogging, something that I have not been doing for quite a while.

So, I'm going to try to post at least a few times this month. I've been thinking about a lot of things (as usual) and maybe it is time to start trying to put some of those thoughts into words.

In the meantime, here is a link to my ever-growing, end-of-year, YouTube playlist. These are the songs that comfort, console and keep me company through this dark, dark month. Perhaps they will improve December for you, too:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUCTQC2TUoqBl3DQ5x7IgBY7tFJdnhXgI

Banjoy: Gregory Alan Isakov

Loving on this, this morning:

#Banjoy – The Avett Brothers

I have been continuing my streak of really not blogging. It's getting to the point that I have been wondering if this blog is just – over.

I don't know yet; I haven't decided.

But while I continue to mull it over, I came across this song today and wanted to send its beautiful banjoy-o-rama out to those of you who visit this blog for a dose of #banjoy:

2019 Word of the Year

Time for the 2019 Word of the Year. A time to reflect and look forward.

I think my 2018 Word of the Year: Hermitage, was right on the money. I spent as much time as I could last year holed up in the woods in my new cabin. And it seems that my desire to be a hermit applied to my online presence as well as to my daily life. Last year saw the lowest number of posts on this blog, by far, in any year since it began.

Which feels "not like me".

Indeed, I have been feeling kind of funny lately in general. And I don't mean funny-haha, I mean funny-strange.

Not in a terrible way. My mood is decent most of the time. I think I just have a lot on my mind. I am processing many things and trying to figure them out. I feel uncertain of my path.

It's easiest for me to hide out when I'm feeling that way. And so, I am particularly grateful this year for this tradition of setting a word as a theme and inspiration for 2019. Wanting to maintain this 6-year streak is pulling me out of hiding for a few minutes and giving me an opportunity to think about and share where I'm at and how I'm feeling.

For 2019, I have selected the word: Attune.

I was all set to pick something more dramatic, like transformation or metamorphosis. But then I looked at the definitions for those words and they spoke of changing one thing completely or dramatically into something else. And that is not what I want this year to be about.

Things are shifting, for sure, and I am changing, but not radically. Carefully, gently, deliberately, with hope and compassion.

And just look at the definition for attune:

Courtesy of the Google Dictionary. To see this larger and live-r,
visit https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=Dictionary#dobs=attune

Dictionary definitions turn me on at the best of times, but I can feel this one put its arms around me and look deep into my eyes, if you know what I mean.

Welcome, 2019. Let's attune to one another.