Yes...

I love that God is a “she” in this poem.

My “Life As A Verb” 37-day challenge is encouraging me to feverishly and freely use the word “yes.” I’m inclined to share the following passage, verbatim:

I was saying a big yes to my life—to all of it, the zinnias in the sun and the syrup on the floor.

It is “stuff” that keeps us from participating fully, from saying yes. Our mobility and sense of fun and playfulness and ability to be directly engaged are muted by our concern for objects, our holding on to. We cherish our objects and we are hampered by them as well, unable to move freely around in the world and engage directly for fear of leaving or losing our coffee cup and 8x11 faux leather legal-pad holder with our initials stamped in the lower right corner in faux gold. No, we say, we’ll just sit right here with our faux things. Objects distance us from ourselves, from others, from life. Things keep us from saying yes. So, too, do other people. And don’t forget us. We most often keep ourselves from saying yes.

Engage with intensity. Say yes. And dance more.

I agree with the author and immediately have the urge to clean out my closets, photo boxes, pantry, and all of the other “junk drawers” disguised as larger storage spaces in my home in the name of simplicity, of letting go.

37-Day Do It Now Challenge:

Each day for the next 37 days, find at least one way to incorporate artfulness into your life. For example, make paying bills an art exercise. Each time you send a letter or bill, decorate the envelope with a drawing or picture cut from a magazine—make are of it. Include inside the bill payment a small card with an inspirational quote. Create goofy caricatures of each family member that you can use as kind of a shorthand when you write notes to one another. Arrange your vegetables on your place in concentric circles, not just a pile and create smiley faces out of fruit in the mornings. Life is art.

I plan to force myself to embrace this challenge out of obligation and intrigue, this could get really interesting, perhaps invoking the organic creativity my soul produces yet has stifled for so long due to external circumstance. In this small, somewhat trivial task, I sense the faint and mysterious aroma of hope. Day 1.