New Year, New Word

It’s that time of year again- time to pick the word I want to live with for the coming year. I have enjoyed this tradition now for 4 years, and I try to be very thoughtful in the selection of my word, knowing well that choosing a word does not always guarantee that I Iive into it fully so much as that I am putting it out there. Today I hold up into the light Memory, my word I have chosen for 2012.

While I may say it jokingly, there is a little tinge of anxiety in my voice when I make light of my issues with memory as I grow older. I’ve taken it for granted for years, and I can still make it happen, but it takes a while to crank over and produce sometimes!

I would like to honor the great gift of memory and to savor it this year. I would like to be more intentional about making good memories, and about recording them in some way either by journaling or art or photos or storytelling. I want to be sure to tell my children stories that matter. I want to do things that help mine stay healthy. (No Soduku….) I want to hold dear what money can never buy. So, to 2012. The year of memory.

One small thing I am doing, having wanted to do it for several years and finally getting in gear, is writing in a five year memory book. Just one line a day and each year it should be fun and dear and clarifying to see what I was doing in previous years on the same day. I’m using this book, and got one for my son’s girlfriend who is about to graduate from college and head off into what will surely be 5 years of great change. I love its color and how it feels in my hand, and I love making that tiny investment into my memory at the end of each day. Several times I have picked it up around 8 to jot down something for the day and something in me says, “Wait! something else might happen yet!”