Author: Meredith

What rooted or anchored you in 2014?

With how shaky and uncertain 2014 began, it truly helped to feel anchored down by friends and family who sent out tethers. I was rooted in my desire to protect and nurture my family. When it was hard to step back and look at the bigger picture — or when that bigger picture still looked beak and dismal — I always kept my focus on my precious ones and remembered the warmth and love my friends and family have surrounded us with. I don’t think I could have survived this year without them.

And where do you want to put down roots in 2015?

This is an excellent question. I have spent so much time thinking about putting down roots in a physical location — home-ownership — that I fail to see the space for roots in the figurative and spiritual senses. So, where do I want to put down roots next year? I think my Cultivate project is still a seedling, waiting to grow and spread its roots deep within my core. The point of the project has always been to cultivate a life worth loving, and I think that basic belief and focus should be where I plant my roots. Each day should be a day worth loving. From this idea, I can draw rituals and practices. It incorporates my desire to protect and nurture my family, and I already have those tethers of friends and family anchoring me in place to forge forward. Moving forward, it won’t matter where I physically reside. I’ll be rooted and home everywhere I go.

Step one: set the timer for 5 minutes and write down as many answers as you can think of to the question: ‘When and how was I brave in 2014?’ Note: remember the private, intimate and small ways in which you were brave as well as the big public ways.

Fighting DFCS to get Rob and Brian home and close the case; going to work even when I felt like hiding under the blankets all day instead; asking the ARNP to refer me for testing to make sure I didn’t have some grave disease; sharing my story with the world wide web; asking for a transfer from one department to another at work; driving in snowy conditions so my children wouldn’t be at a babysitter’s house while I was stranded at work; hosted a prompt series in September; reached out to a great writer for a guest post for the last day of Cultivate 2015; planned out Cultivate 2015; there’s still a minute left, and my brain’s tapped.

Step two: Choose one of more of those moments of bravery and write a letter yourself back at the beginning of 2014, letting you know how brave you are going to be that year.

Dear Meredith,

This year you’re going to let out your inner super hero with the amount of bravery you’ll exude. You’re going to fight the beast and win — you’ve been fighting so hard against the injustice served to your family since the start of last year, and you’re going to win this war. You know in your heart that your children need you to protect them from the corruption of the world, and you are going to be so brave and valiant. You will show these people that this momma bear isn’t one to be trifled with. You are going to glue your family back together and finish out 2014 with the most important people around the Christmas tree. And how brave of you to share your struggles and victory with the world! There will be others who find inspiration in your story and channel bravery for their own circumstances.

Great job!

Love,
Me

Step three: Write yourself a short reminder to tuck into your wallet or post above your desk of just how brave you can and will be in 2015.

You fought the machine and won. You are your own super hero. <3

Write a letter from you to you… filled with forgiveness, love, and a big bear hug.

I hear you saying that you should be this, you should be that. This should be done. That should be perfect by now. At age 31, you say you should be successful. You shouldn’t be trapped in… this life you’ve come to know. You look at how others are flourishing — peers from school, peers from around the web. No more of that, sweetheart. It’s time to love yourself and love your life.

Things may not be perfect. They may even have gotten very rough these past two years. There may have been many times of struggle. But look at how many people still compliment your smile! Through it all, you still smile. You still laugh. You still share love and care with the world. It’s not all that bad now, is it? It’s okay to feel depressed and worried from time to time. That’s normal given the circumstances. But it’s okay to be happy in spite of it all. You are kind-hearted. You are giving. You are nurturing. You are your own special kind of person. You can continue forward with a smile in spite of many hardships, which isn’t very common. Don’t feel terrible about not measuring up to those standards of yours, honey. You’ve set the bar far too high, and you’re already achieving things that others envy. Going into 2015, remember that you are worthy.

What tiny rituals: signal that your day is starting; help you ease into a creative project; give you closure from an intensive task; or mark other significant milestones in your day? What new rituals would you like to create in the new year?

Each morning, I typically heat the kettle and pour at least one cup of tea. The lukewarm infusion clears my throat and warms my body up gently. I get a small dose of caffeine to help me ease into the day. When starting a project, I put on music almost always. At the end of each day right before going to bed, I floss and brush my teeth, brush my hair, kick off my slippers, and climb into bed with my phone, a hanky, and my water bottle. Right now that’s about as ritualistic as I am in my life, which is unfortunate.

I have attempted rituals in the past or fallen out of practice with others as times have changed. I really need to incorporate new rituals to cultivate better health and well-being. I would like to stretch each morning and before bed. I would like to drink a certain amount of water while waiting for the kettle to heat and the tea to brew. I would like to form a good writing ritual. I would like to really cement some distinct family rituals now that all the children are old enough to fully interact and communicate — board game nights, for example, might actually be realistic for all five of us without worrying that game pieces may be placed in mouths. I want to practice yoga now more than ever because my spine desperately needs me to treat it gently and respectfully. I want to practice belly-dancing again because there’s nothing quite like the feeling of hip isolations. I would like to create many new rituals designed to cultivate a life worth loving.

What is the sound of your own voice?

When I was younger, a friend’s mother told me I sounded “like Minnie Mouse.” To this day, I associate the sound of my recorded voice as being “like Minnie Mouse.” But that’s beside the point — when I read this prompt, I didn’t think of my literal voice anyway. I thought of how I felt like my voice — my writing — has been silenced, choked out by emotional and psychological trauma suffered for a year and a half of my life. Without dwelling on that same painful past, I’m incredibly desperate to regain my voice and make it heard once again.

My voice had been weak at first, floundering for the right words to attract an audience. Some days I felt like I was simply changing the medium from a locked diary to an anonymous page in the annals of the world wide web. And then I began to find a soft yet firm voice, speaking out for a specific group of women, culminating in my readership surge in November 2009 with the posting of my HBA2C story. Then I began the journey into Reverb, beginning with the Best09 series that December. My voice seemed to boom loudly, or so the statcounter said. 2010 was my best year to date. Then a series of events lead me down a new path — and things began to soften. I’ve slowly but surely been losing my voice, but I’ve been suffering from the writer’s version of laryngitis for much of 2014. In August I started to clear my throat with the help of Kat’s August Moon prompts. I even managed to channel inspiration with my September Equinox prompts.

Now, I feel like I’ve been floundering with my Cultivate series. I branched off of Reverb in 2012 because I felt called to the word “cultivate.” I felt like I was competing with several Reverbs in December 2012, though, and felt drowned out by the sheer numbers of people searching “reverb” while skipping over “cultivate.” In 2013, Kat and I co-conspired August Moon’s inception, and it was while working with her that I decided I wanted to leave room for Reverb — and hook my audience for January. It went over… like a whisper this year. I don’t know if writers were burnt out or if my line-up of guest prompts didn’t suit the readership. Still, I feel like my life’s circumstances hindered my ability to promote properly, that perhaps I just need to give next month a shot. If for whatever reason Cultivate 2015 doesn’t pan out for January, I can always dusted it off, polish it up, and deliver it in June. Maybe we need our Solstices for motivation. I won’t be discouraged. I will project my voice, and I will find my way once more.