My One Word for 2017...What's Yours?

Happy New Year!

It's 2017...which makes Y2K look kind of cute.
Remember all that craziness?
For those of you too young to remember, our computers weren't going to be able to handle moving from 1999 to 2000...we needed Y2K kits and preparation.
Not.

Now, 17 years later, we have different craziness.
Other worries.

And a brand new deck of 365 beautiful days.
Aren't we lucky?

Stop.
Right this minute, think of the many people who wish for just one more day...
and you have a red carpet of days rolled out just for you.

*****

There's this thing going around Twitter asking you to choose a word for the New Year.
#One Word2017

This word is to serve as a guide, a motivator, a touchstone...a rudder for the year.

As a lover of words...this is a nearly impossible task.
Last year, I skipped the hype...too overwhelmed at the thought.

But, this year, my word found me.

Remember Naomi Shihab Nye?
If not, read this blog post about this lovely soul right here.

In preparing to meet Naomi, I listened to a beautiful interview with her on a podcast called On Being.
In it, she reveals a beautiful interaction with a student.

Naomi had traveled to Japan for a poetry-teaching trip.
Before every class, on every chalkboard, she would write something on the board up in the corner:

“You are living in a poem.”

She wrote this as a subliminal message.

She wouldn't spend time discussing it...she had other more important things to share...

like poems or poets or observations or ways to seamlessly include poetry in your life.

But she wanted students to consider it.

In the On Being episode, Naomi thinks out loud:

"When you think, 

when you're in a very quiet place, 

when you're remembering,

when you're savoring an image, 

when you're allowing your mind to calmly leap from one thought to another, 

that's a poem.

That's what a poem does."

After her trip, Naomi received a letter from one of the students in Yokohama, Japan.

Reflecting on Naomi's visit, the student gifts her with this observation:

"Here in Japan, we have a concept called Yutori.

It is spaciousness.

It's a kind of living with spaciousness.

For example, it is leaving early enough to get somewhere so that you know you are going to arrive early, so when you get there,

you have time to look around...

...and after you read a poem, 

Yutori is...

just knowing you can hold it,

you can be in that space of the poem

and it can hold you in that space...

and you don't have to explain it,

you don't have to paraphrase it,

you just hold it...

...and it allows you to see differently."

And, BAM.

In that minute, Yutori captured me.

Hypnotized me.

Like a song that gets stuck in your head, Yutori would not get out.

Maybe it's because my life is busy...

and spaciousness doesn't seem like a very common part of my life.

Maybe it's because I often feel distracted when I want to be present.

Maybe it's the world I live in...

constant constraints...

a series of reasons why it can't be done...

why it is impossible...

always feeling like I am pushing against walls...

the idea of spaciousness has stuck to my heart like a sticky leaf.

*****

One of my favorite phrases for teachers 

and parents

and mostly myself...
is Emily Dickinson's:

I LOVE to dwell in possibility.

Soak up possibility like it is a warm bath.

Anything is possible.

I believe it, completely.

So maybe Yutori is just a reflection of that.

Spaciousness makes room for possibility.

All I can tell you is that living with spaciousness, I feel different.

Open.

Ready.

Unhurried.

Willing to linger...

...and that is what I need in 2017.

My heart knows it intuitively.

So, my gift to you is this precious word.

Yutori.

I hope it offers you the comfort of enough...

more than enough.

The gift of feeling that anything is possible.

The treasure of a peaceful heart...

and a willing mind.

Roll it around in your head and let me know...

and if that's not the word for you...

test out a few others.

Share with me the word that finds you.

Until then, let your head find some open space and rest.
Let your heart find comfort in plenty of room.
Stretch out...
you're wanted here.