Brim

She’s looking over the contents of the closet spilling out of my studio/office space into the hallway.  She’s skeptical at best, despite my earnest gushing over the transformation poised to take place:  A post-Christmas Elf(a) descending on my house in the form of The Container Store’s installer ready to deploy their famous closet organizing system.  It doesn’t seem possible these stacks, boxes and bins of ephemera, the tools of unfettered creativity; the physical evidence of ruthless, vigilant record-keeping and memory-preserving could be contained within shelves, trays and drawers even the most efficient closet planner designs.

 

She’s right, of course.  My life spills over.  And I couldn’t be more grateful.  I’m writing this on the last day of the year, which is almost always a time for caesura.  I’m taking a few moments to celebrate what’s been beautiful, magical and rewarding about the past 364 days, but more importantly to get clear on what I aspire to going forward.

 

I want to live peacefully in the unsolvable.  I greet many mornings with a clenched jaw, a foggy head struggling to grasp the remnants of a dream that has me studying a perpetual puzzle.  The answer I work so hard to find dissolves into the question of why I’m even searching.  This, I’ve come to believe, is where I need to accede.  Some challenges are not mine to solve no matter how hard I try.  As my yoga instructor says, we come to class to learn how to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.  For 2015 I want to accept what I cannot change, and release myself to just be.

I want to listen better. Not more, but better. I want the quality to improve.  I want to become so attuned I hear the screams in another’s silence. This is a skill few ever master because its range is infinite; we’re constantly reminded we can always be better.  For me it’s about removing my own filter so I can really grasp what another is saying.  It needs to be more about forensics and less about foreshadowing. In 2015 I’ll strive to form my lips around questions when I want nothing more than to blurt out an answer.

I want to be a reckless forgiver.  When I’m presented with forgiveness as the definition of love, it’s a concept I turn over many times in my mind.   As I apply it to a myriad of situations I decide not only to back this theory, but to be an opinion leader.  Whether we’re talking about loving others or loving ourselves, without the ability to release the missteps, misgivings, and mistakes inherent in all of us it’s virtually impossible. Applied quite sparingly in the past (especially for myself), in 2015 I want to use forgiveness liberally.

These are boxes remaining forever unchecked, work that is never quite done.  But if I’m successful my life will continue to spill out all over the place, organized closet or not.  What a beautiful mess.