Welcome to Myself, Only More So: a Daily Reader for Me, but You Can Come Too. Day 2.

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My word of the year is both.

Last year, it was magic.

Create, before that. Here, before that.

Here seems to be the most lasting of the bunch since I started picking them, and not just because it was the first. That year—2023, I guess it was—I wanted to be more present. Depression had handed my ass to me in the fall of 2022, and I didn’t want to waste any of the new year running from it.

I needed an anchor, and here did the trick. Pen in hand, I’m still prone to greeting myself with that very word when I start a journal entry, my own personal roll call. It needed to be okay to check in. I needed the present moment to be good enough. Here. Breathe, it reminded me to breathe! Touch grass. Look at tree. Wiggle toes. Anchor.

Create worked similarly. It was a simple call to action that kept my hands moving throughout the year. I painted a lot that year, and glued shit to other shit, and put glitter on even more than that. The movement forced me to gather more words, ones that would walk fear back to the cheap seats where it belonged. I would wonder whether a new art project was worth trying, literally worth the materials required, until I convinced myself, You can’t do it wrong. Then I was free to proceed.

Create was an anchor, too.

I think I wanted a trampoline, when I picked magic. I wanted to launch—or be launched—and stay open to a sky full of transcendent possibility. Synchronicities would pop up in my life, and I wanted to marvel at them. Those things bigger than myself, I wanted to bring me awe. 

That’s a lot of work to expect from a few letters. 

Magic came to mean something less like awe and more like I don’t actually know the future, which landed with a dull thud of acceptance, resignation. There was still plenty of glitter in my year, but a lot less to touch or cling on to, in general.

So what’s up with both?

I want it all, still, very much so. I want the anchor and the trampoline. I want to be grounded and to fly.

Improv is governed by the principle “yes, and.” It’s both energy. Receive, then build. Self, ensemble.

Haven’t we had enough of either/or? False choices are everywhere, and I just want to kick them out of my way. Both! Both! I shout.

And finally, two things can be true. I’m constantly reminding myself of this. I can feel happy-sad. I can make a choice I feel confident about and still loathe the consequences. Both both both.

I could use more both in my life, most of the time. Both it is.

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Writing prompt. Pick a word, live with it for a day. What kind of roommate is it?

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