The other day I was at coffee with one of my dearest, the poet, Stephanie Lenox and we were talking about what words we might pick as our guideposts for 2024.
Stephanie and I meet regularly to talk about our writing goals and to throw writerly activities at each other, like coming up with a Word of the Year – one word through which we can see everything we want for the coming calendar.
Well, we both forgot what our words for this year.
Like, no idea.
Our 2023s have gone that off-the-rails.
Truly, I love a word-of-the-year project.
Seriously, is that a business? I’ll do it free for the first three people who respond to this newsletter.
If I were to explainb WOTY to a friend, I would offer that a chosen word should:
Remind you of something you’ve forgotten that’s important
Have some kind of health tie-in, since health is wealth
Be weird enough that a million other people aren’t using the same word
Inspire some kind of specific scene, or scenes, where an action is happening
Here are some words I’ve picked in the past:
2019: Align
In 2019, I didn’t know what I wanted from life and I was also dealing with a pelvic nerve injury caused by a bike fall. I imagined it being a year of yoga and focus and having my priorities dialed in: My family, my health. We moved my mother-in-law to Oregon, so that was big!
2020: Filigree.
A rare noun year. That was the year I spent stabbing things like this giant sloth face because #pandemiclife, but I had already chosen filigree as a way to remind myself to pay attention to the beauty of the small things. That I ended up being home with two grade school children while working that year seemed about right. (Embroidery is truly mental health).
2021: Hunker
I don’t remember a single thing I wanted to do in 2021 (I recall wrote an essay about my chickens going all broody) but my friend Maria Stuart died and that lit a fire under me and I finished a book proposal and got my amazing agent and I spent a lot of time at home so it must have worked. Also, I was supposed to remember that my husband is hot.
2022: Sit
Last year I was butt-in-chair writing and editing Find Yourself At Home while finally recovering from the pelvic nerve injury that made it impossible for me to sit down for about four years. We went to see the exhibition “The Modern Chair” in Palm Springs. I also started sitting with what has happened – giving myself enough time to process the past two years.
2023: What was it?
Really.
I went looking for it in my notebooks and found nothing and then remembered I had posted about it on KJ Dell’Antonia’s great writing podcast #amwriting. Sure enough, when I scrolled down the post I found my word.
It was “stretch.”
STRETCH!
I know what I was thinking at the time. I was getting ready to publish my first book, and also, I wanted to do more yoga – seriously, always not doing the yoga – so I liked “stretch” because it meant reaching for something beyond your fingertips just to the point where it feels deliciously uncomfortable.
Enjoy the discomfort.
But guys – this year, I got a Hashimoto’s diagnosis (about the time of the above picture)and possibly had a curse put on me by another writer and developed vestibular migraine and published a book and spent my advance on nine doctors, two MRI’s, new glasses, and a week of neuro rehab.
I was not deliciously uncomfortable.
I was regretfully incapacitated!
In other words, I got my aspirations handed to me in 2023 and it should be a surprise to no one that I forgot my word.
So what do I do now?
Do I get a new word? Do I scrap the project entirely?
I’m leaning towards the latter.
Then again, maybe that’s part of designing a life – learning to be nimble and throw out an idea and regroup instead of clinging to something that is no longer working.
Or maybe that’s my word for 2024. Maybe it’s time for an adjective.
Nimble.
Design Trend of the Week: Arched Transitions
We don’t think enough about transitions between rooms when we are building a home, especially in open living spaces. But every transitions in an opportunity to create a transcending moment and cue people how to behave. I first started thinking about arched doorways when I wrote this story about Bright Designlab’s Portland project for Andre Martin and Julie Dukie. And I’m still thinking about what that arch does for the views between the kitchen and the dining room and what it feels like to walk through it (think quiet drama and a few milliseconds of exaltation). Sure enough, I’m seeing it in lots of other places now, and I still love it every time. Photo: George Barberis Photography for Bright Designlab
Thank you for pledging!
I know that a lot of writers are using Substack to make a living and I thought that eventually I’d do that. So wasn’t I surprised and *uglycrying* when I got a note that someone out there thinks my writing is worth paying for. And there have been a couple more friends who have thrown some money about this project. It’s a real wind-beneath-my-wings feeling and has really lit a fire under me. I didn’t even know you could pledge before I turned on monetization! So thank you. I won’t forget it.
What I’m working on
Well I finally lost it with all of our kids’ school stuff and called in California Closets. Our home doesn’t have a mudroom and the kids just throw their backpacks and shoes and gloves and jackets and school stuff and karate bags and art supplies everywhere. I hired my local crew Steve Hogg of Hogg Renovation and Construction to tear out the game closet, remove the soffit and the trim (it was originally had of those awful accordion doors). Jordan and Willie remade the bullnose on the left side and prepared the space for the next step, which is to install this baby (design behind paywall)↓. The bottom left opening is for the kitty litter, btw. It arrives December 22. Merry Christmas to me!
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