The week before Christmas I was struck down by the flu. I worked from home for that week, and just when I started to feel better the Great Christmas Blizzard of 2022 covered West Michigan with a ridiculous amount of snow. Throughout these two weeks of isolation, Poe and Pepper (pictured above) were a wonderful source of amusement and affection for Zyra and I.
The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for January 2023 is:
Do you have a word of the year? Is there one word that sums up what you need to work on or change in the coming year?
For this year, I think my word will be Attentiveness. That point where attention meets engagement. I had little enough of either over the past (checks notes) five years, since I went on hiatus from Caffeinated Press at the beginning of 2018. The last three years have been a fugue of reacting to or recovering from outside world events. Now that we are through the holidays and already the daylight hours are growing noticeably longer, I feel a renewed energy.
Attentiveness, to me, means not just noticing the parts of my life which need attention, but then doing something about it. Whether it be my relationship with my partner, my health, the martial arts class, my family, my writing, our house, or anything else in my life, I think I am ready to re-enter the world and take care of the things which need taking care of.
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Attentiveness is a fantastic word, John. We lose sight of closer things that need our care and support when dealing with a dumpster fire of world events alongside being sick and extreme weather. Oof. Your support of your partner’s graduate education and care of your naminals makes you awesome. You rock. Thank you for sharing a pic of your furry overlords. Happy New Year!
Noticing and doing – smart! That’s knowledge with action.
Sorry you were sick and then got snowed in.