Is It Avoidance Or A Desire To Fully Live?

Sorting Out New Year's Intentions

I've savored the present at the expense of my future many times. This is because I want to live a life of poetry. I want to savor meaningful moments with all of my senses because life is unpredictable. I practice meditation to intensify presence knowing life can be fragile. I don’t want to lose people I love so when they are with me, I might put off doing things I resent like keeping track of spending and taxes or doing ‘meaningless’ but necessary errands. Only to cram them all together at the last minute before I get into trouble. Is it avoidance or the desire to fully live? No matter which one, it takes away from the present, eventually. It takes away from the ability to savor the poetry of life because I spend energy trying to keep stress at bay. To keep ‘to-do lists’ from infiltrating precious moments. 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

There are things others struggle with that have become habitual for me like working out regularly and eating nourishing food. My healthy habits were set in place because I had many health issues growing up - severe asthma and allergies that landed me in the ICU, and a car accident that fractured my back and neck (I share my journey of healing in Awakening Artemis). Working out and eating well have become non-negotiable for me. Buying local and organic food is also part of my politics. I know what I eat and contribute to has a ripple effect. It's hard to enjoy a palm oil laden muffin or Dorito that is contributing to deforestation. In other words, working out and eating well are ingrained; not a necessary resolution for me.

I enjoy work because I have created work — from writing to nature connection and nature advocacy — that is meaningful to me. But it is not always easy either. When you’re your own boss, you can never escape your boss. And my boss says I need to get a little more organized about work and better at self promotion which I loathe. No need to say more about that here.

So I wonder about my New Years’ resolutions and/or intentions. I'm good at passion, creativity and being in love. So maybe it's the mundane I need to get better at so those things don't creep into my cherished moments and invade or erode them with stress. 

Me meditating in a boxing gym in NYC, 2011. Photo by Sonya Kitchell

Other intentions are to put my poetry out into the world. To submit poems even if and when I get rejected. In my twenties, I carried a packet of printed poems everywhere with me. I wanted everyone I knew and cared about to read them. When did that stop?, I wonder. I'm trying to trace it back. Maybe it’s when BOMB magazine rejected two that I submitted? I had thin skin then and figured they weren't good enough and that in turn, my writing wasn't good enough either. But I kept on boxing (I was training for pro fights then). My body could take a pounding but my creative ego was intensely fragile.

If I were to make a list of the things I wanted to do this year, it would include becoming fluent in Spanish (with so many Spanish speaking friends you’d think I would already have done this), dancing more, continued devotion to nature, to reading and becoming a better writer. I’d like to be an athlete again. I work out but I'm not participating in a sport and I crave that old feeling of intensity. Ultimately, I crave routine. My body is itching to get back into one after moving so much in 2023 (something I shared a bit about in my last post).

And of course, I want to be better at dealing with the mundane as it comes. I resent the capitalist, anthropocentric world that exploits and yet, when I reject it, it only backfires on me. But is compliance the way? I don’t think so either. Maybe, like developing new routines and habits to chip away at what needs to change within ourselves; maybe we can do the same to change the outer landscape of capitalism that erodes inner and outer ecosystems. A social structure that keeps us wanting and at the same time, tells us to be grateful for what we have (even if we’ve been given the short end of the stick for longer than is justified) needs to change. Gratitude has its place, of course; it is vital we don’t take precious parts of life for granted. But an overreliance on gratitude can mask deeper discontent and stifle critical action. There have been times my gut gnawed at me with unease, but instead, I wrote gratitude lists and savored each drop of sweetness.

I'm figuring it out, finding my way. I imagine that will always be the case in this mystery of life.

Happy New Year.