Forget Resolutions. Choose a Word (or Phrase) for 2021.

On a walk with my friend Maddie the other day, we started talking about the new year, which inevitably led to a discussion of resolutions or resolution-like-things. It was then that Maddie told me that her friend Beth doesn’t set a goal or a resolution for the new year—she sets a word, and now Maddie does it too. At first Maddie was suspicious of the practice, but, after having done it for two years now, she said it’s proven to be worthwhile.

“Wow,” I said. It struck me immediately. It felt simple, like a talisman to keep returning to when I inevitably fly off the handle in 2021. “I’m going to do it too,” I said.

I kept thinking about it, kept tossing and turning over and over about what my 2021 word should be. I had a seemingly endless list going in a note on my phone but, ultimately, my word for 2021 is “ask”.

I just kept coming back to it:

Ask…

• the difficult questions

• my loved ones how they’re doing/about their lives more

• for help

• for consideration and opportunities

• myself why I’m afraid of [insert so many things here!]
  

Root my feet into the floor of doctor’s offices or other places I’m scared to take up space in and ask the questions.
Put myself in the shoes of my loved one and ask them a question about what they just said, or reach out across the gap of space, we have so much of it now, and ask the question “How are you doing?”

*

I am not a natural asker of questions. Talk to my loved ones. They will corroborate this, and quickly. It’s been brought to my attention over the years, and was recently brought to my attention again, which got me thinking. It really got me thinking—with my coffee at dawn, in the car, on the couch, in the ocean. I thought—what does it mean to ask a question? And—why am I so bad at this? These were the thoughts that ensued:

To ask is to make a commitment to stay a bit, to not move so quickly from Point A to Point B. It’s a commitment to dwell as you’re waiting for the person to reply--to ask is to sit and keep your ears open as the other person responds. A question literally creates a space that wasn’t there before for someone to step into and share, maybe even set down a weight they’ve been carrying alone. And to be honest, a lot of my life, I have been moving too quickly from Point A to Point B to take the time to ask, been too engrossed in whatever’s going on in my own “echo chamber” (to crib from Dean Nelson’s book on asking questions).

To ask is to still vocal chords, put them in the back seat and let your companion drive and tell and share.

To ask is also to feel you have the right to take up space, like a cow in the road. To be still. It’s to say you’re worthy of the space, the time and the answer and it’s an offering to the other person of those inimitable things as well.

To ask means you want to know more about the world and its inhabitants and phenomenon.

Questions are for asking yourself too.

Ask yourself why you’re scared.

Ask yourself, who says you can’t?

Who is “them”?

Why not?

*

So here I am. Entering 2021 hoping to invite others to share more, to take up more space, to linger, to root my feet in and ask questions I’m scared of asking of others and myself, to indulge curiosity. It feels good.

Special shout out to Maddie for inspiring me, and extended shout out to Beth, who gave the idea to her. <3

PS: When I told my best friends from high school about this endeavor, most of them got really into it too—every couple of days a friend would pipe up on our group chat with their word and why. I’m so excited about this, and to see how the practice unfolds for my loved ones this year.

PPS: This poem by the wondrous Mary Oliver starts and ends with some of the most beautiful and important questions I have ever come across.

Why I Self Published my Book Be Surf: A Surfer's Brief Manual for Living

We all entered contests when we were kids, I think, at least most of us. Inherent in those contests and competitions was the process of being judged, being evaluated. We often got numerical scores which told us if we did well or not, and even if we felt we had done very well FOR US, some old guy with gray hair who’d been judging gymnastics since the era of Nadia Comaneci, could tell us we did very poorly indeed.

But when it comes to my writing, I don’t want someone else to decide if I get to release my words into the world, and how. I don’t want to hold my breath and wait for the score.

There were many reasons why self publishing (aka independent publishing) was the path I chose when I released my book Be Surf and why it’s the path I plan to continue down for my future projects.

The primary one I’ve already alluded to: I’ve got things to say, and I don’t want someone else to determine if/when/how I have the right to say them. I have very little tolerance for feeling controlled or subdued in any way. I would have broken out of the barn every night if born a horse, and the idea of a committee judging my work and potentially blocking my path is anathema. It doesn’t work for me. It works lovely for so many others—thank God as it’s the main way I’ve encountered so many of the books I love—but it does not work for me.

Alongside that, I am an extremely impatient wild boar when it comes to doing something I want to do. With self publishing, if I wanted to release a book tomorrow (or like 72 hours), I could. The fact that with Be Surf there was nothing in my way for that, save a few formalities as I went through the uploading process, was amazing. And let’s be real—when it comes to our dreams (and writing has always been my dream), the fewer things cluttering our path and giving us a reason to make excuses like “I really should be putting away the laundry rather than writing”, the better. I began writing Be Surf in February or March 2020 and I published it end of August 2020.

Just to belabor this point even further: The idea of the traditional publishing cycle made me want to take a nap. I thought about the fact that I could work for a year or more to get a traditional deal, then work another year or more on the manuscript and I just couldn’t bear the thought.

Moreover (thank you, Merri Weinberg for teaching us all of the best transitions in AP English), I’ve always wanted to do things my way. It’s not necessarily better, but it’s mine. I feel on the outside I have always presented as a rule follower but the truth is, when it comes to the important stuff, I’ve always wanted to make my own rules. I have a father and a mother who abided their own ideas and I’m over the moon for that.

Take all this and add more transparency with sales and the feeling I can promote it in ways that feel authentic to me, and I thank the universe daily that this is the path I find myself on.

Additional resources:

If you’ve ever thought about writing a book but, like me, the thought of traditional publishing overwhelmed you, I suggest the following two books:

Joanne Penn, Successful Self-Publishing: How To Self-Publish An Ebook, Print Book And Audiobook

and

Helen Sedwick, Self-Publisher’s Legal Handbook

Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creating Living beyond Fear

Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro: Tap your Inner Power and Create your Life’s Work

First Step to Forgiveness

I work with a holistic health coach and this week, she suggested I pick a topic that I felt I had a lot to say about, and start writing consistently about it.

She named a few suggestions but the one that jumped out at me immediately was forgiveness.

“Forgiveness,” I said. “That’s the one.”

After my mother took her life, I slithered and wiggled around through life like a mud bug for a long time.

I wanted to be Anywhere Else By Inside of This Skin.

The thought of all the terrible things I’d said to my mother—the thought of of all the venom spewed in teenage angst, years before she died, the thought of all the times I’d lied to her, put her last in terms of plans. That, coupled with the fact that I’d chosen to step back over the last couple years of her mental illness—had opted out of being there in a sense—these things corroded my heart.

And I came to believe, in no conscious way but in a deeprooted, invisible way, I simply came to believe it that I was no good. That there was no goodness inside of me and that I was at the core no good.

Do you know what it’s like to feel no good?

That feeling of wanting to shake out of yourself like a robe, that feeling of wanting to obliterate all sentient thoughts and feelings by any means necessary so they can’t haunt you?

That is suffering. And for me, it came from my own self—the narratives I was writing in my head, the awful words that truth or lie, I was repeating to myself, quickly eroding my sense of self worth.

It took me a long time to recognize that I was missing forgiveness—that a lack of forgiving myself was the thing that was ruining my life.

I felt despair that there was no undoing the awful things I had done and said to my mother before she died. She was gone—her pulverized bones and flesh a part of the ocean we’d swirled her ashes in and her spirit Somewhere Else.

There was no second chance.

After a few years of this gray, heavy, dark despair—after a few years of mud crawling my way through life, of sinking like a stone—one day I finally wondered: Is this really what I’m committing to?

Hm.

This is a very long life.

Am I really going to spend it committed to misery, hating myself?

This feels…a little…like…no fun at all?

I recall I was on the Green line train in Boston, ascending from the underground Kenmore stop to Commonwealth Ave and suddenly there was light all around me.

Perhaps, I thought, I could try a different way.

And the path to forgiveness opened up, like a secret trail in a mess of brambles I hadn’t seen was there. And it was a very very long path but I had begun.