To Savor: My Resolution

There is so much (too much) that needs to be written. There's so much that needs mulling, that needs a quiet Saturday afternoon alone in my little city apartment, half lit with afternoon sun, the heat turned temporarily up. I need distance from my life so I can see it clearly, so I can bring it all into focus, and perhaps learn something. I want to be a bird on a branch above my life, watching me work, watching me become so stressed out my stomach twists and turns, my back bones grip and lock. I want to be the bird seeing me so afraid of what people think, of wishing they think I'm pretty, of wishing to be something special in their eyes. I want to gain that distance and sing back to myself some new song that eases my stomach muscles and pulls my shoulders tenderly back into place.

There's a me I've lost lately. When I think of myself, of the person I have been and want to be, I think of something fresh, like the faint citrus scent you catch if you press an orange up to your mouth, the peel still cloaking the fruit. I am vibrant, and never wear dress clothes. I wear skirts, and overalls, and capris, and tank tops and t-shirts. I never smile when I don't mean it, and my eyes have lights that switch on when paint hits the canvas, or a new poetic line catches on the synapses of my brain, or my boyfriend practices guitar and the sound of him working over frets and strings tucks the moment in day blue.

I want the me who relishes in the sound of onions simmering in olive oil, who creates and creates and goes for walks and delights and thinks and reads C.S. Lewis until her brain throbs with thoughts deep and wide as the Mystery that breeds them. I want the me who savors.

Something I've realized recently is that I am not refreshed or truly relaxed by doing nothing. I like to believe that watching marathons of crime television dramas is truly cathartic. I like to believe that television and movies and general provide relaxing entertainment. My weekends are home to these sorts of experiences. And though I love them, they don't provide me with any real rest. I will not be sustained by those moments when I'm back in the grind, dealing with an inconsistent work environment, painstakingly completing graduate school applications, and occasionally allowing the big worries inside to make an even bigger mess in my head.

What does sustain me, what moments I still remember (simple as they were at the time), are moments when I savored something. I remember sitting by myself out on my back porch at my old apartment with all the lights off so I could see the stars, talking to God about the pains and feeling somehow secure in the big dark world with its miniscule glowing markers and tree shadows. I remember dicing peppers, tossing spices, entirely focused on the art of creation.

I savor laying out my tapestry, making a big mess of all my paints and charcoal pencils, ripping up designed paper to collage and paint over. I savor checking up on blogs and websites of those who inspire me to be as tender and loving and hopeful and creative and helpful as possible in this world (lately, maganda.org...who's actually moved...but she has a link you can click to find her new site...I have to do it every time :)). I savor going for walks, writing poems on the walls of my mind as I cross the street, breath deep into every well as I enter the bookstore, heading straight for the poetry section first, celebrating story and the ability to dream up and give words to the sights only you have held.

I savor journaling. I savor blogging. I savor this walk over what my mind has been turning and forgetting and stomping under all the stress and clutching and gripping. I savor thinking about my boyfriend and what we are beginning together. I savor the image of him, shaggy hair, jeans with giant holes in the knees. I love coming back to the realization that I have never felt so lucky as I do now.

So, here's to 2011. May it be a year of savoring. And it will be some work, as odd as that sounds. It is most difficult for me to take time to enjoy. And there is time--not much--but there is. There are long enough moments for taking in sights, for going slower, for returning to being a simple human being with one life that is going, moving, now. I'm starting now, writing what I love to write, here, for whoever reads it. May you find time to savor, and be filled and refreshed and sustained.