I didn’t really do a word of the year last year. I knew there was a possibility we’d be moving—the concept had been brought up hypothetically a year and a half earlier, and I’d spent the time since gently acclimating the kids to the idea of moving without being direct about it so that when it did become a real thing they were primed to be excited (without there being Feelings if we didn’t). But it wasn’t a certainty. Even my yearly omen pages (journaling and card pulls done for the twelve days after Christmas, intended to be a reflection on the coming twelve months) were all over the place in a way the ones I’ve done far for this year haven’t been.
But this year I wanted to be a bit more organized about it. I’m not doing any self-improvement at the moment; to paraphrase a tweet that’s going around, “I’m done doing better, it’s the year’s turn.” But really, I’ve spent a very long time trying to be better and there has to be value in stopping and recognizing how far I’ve come and how fine I actually am. So my new weekly (not daily, that’s not a reasonable demand to make of myself at this time) practice is to pull a card from a lovely contemplative nature oracle deck (the cantigee oracle), read a poem from an anthology (Poetry Unbound), and read a chapter from What Makes You Bloom by Kevin Miguel Garcia because it’s thematically appropriate and has nice prompts at the end of each chapter, and journal about them. Not with the intention of creating new change, but with the intention of becoming aware of change that has already occurred. Of noticing.
So that’s my word for the year—notice. Not noticing anything in particular, not looking to make a list or plan, not grading what I see, just seeing it, as it is.