Is anyone else out there always running late? Despite my best intentions and my carefully engineered plans to trick myself into being on time, I’m usually running late. I like to imagine that I’m endearingly frazzled. But one of my high school students told me recently, with a sly smile, that my new nickname was “Ms. Mohn’s Late” (aka Ms. Mohn-Slate). More proof that teenagers always have your number.
Dedicated to all my always-late kindred spirits, here’s a new year reflection prompt. It’s a Lucille Clifton poem followed by a meditation and writing prompt.
This is my first audio recording, which I hope might be nice for the poem and meditation part and allow you to “rest your eyes,” which is what I tell my kids I’m doing when I lie down somewhere for a few minutes and just surrender.
Find a comfortable place to sit, or do something mindless as you listen—something that helps you loosen your grip on the to do lists in your head, and let your mind wander.
birth-day today we are possible. the morning, green and laundry-sweet, opens itself and we enter blind and mewling. everything waits for us: the snow kingdom sparkling and silent in its glacial cap, the cane fields shining and sweet in the sun-drenched south. as the day arrives with all its clumsy blessings what we will become waits in us like an ache. —from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: 1965-2010, BOA Editions (2012).
Prompt
What “clumsy blessings” have come your way recently?
What do you love about where you are now? In this moment? In your life?
No matter how small or simple, think of one thing you really love. I’m thinking of people or rituals or moments…Try not to judge or analyze—just notice what comes to mind first.
What is one small way you might deepen or extend your interaction with that thing you love?
If it’s that you’re writing again after a long silence, you could also illustrate what you write (even if you’re a terrible artist like me). Or, you could commit to sharing a few lines with a friend periodically…
Reflect on that or write about it.
Now, go bigger with your thinking…
What waits in you like an ache?
Reflect and write about that.
Follow where your intuition is leading you with this one.
Try to resist making this into to dos—just reflect and write out words or images or questions that come to you.
Remember what Clifton says: “today we are possible.”
What does that mean for you?
What is waiting for you to name it?
& Here’s our weekly “Do Nothing” thread…inspired by Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: What “nothing” have you done recently that felt really good? What did you do (or not do) in order to open up time and space and connect with yourself, your actual physical environment, and/or others in real life?
In the comments, please share your nothings so we can celebrate them with you…
I had a migraine yesterday afternoon. Usually, I take my meds and keep plowing through with work (esp when everyone is out of the house, which rarely happens, and happened yesterday). Instead, I laid down, closed my eyes, and listened to my audio book for a long time—Ross Gay's The Book of More Delights. I can't really nap these days, but this felt like the next best thing.
Thank you for the inspiration to consider this, Emily: "What is one small way you might deepen or extend your interaction with that thing you love?"