This Little Light of Mine

Originally published at KarenVernon.net on January 9, 2022

I tend to scoff at New Year’s resolutions, my own and others’. If I make them at all, they are more tedious than lofty – like the year I vowed to empty the dishwasher more often (really!). While the turning of a new year offers the opportunity and the temptation to think, “Now it will be different,” I know too well that my resolutions will likely be history by Valentine’s Day.

So my hopes and intentions for this coming year are just that – hopes and intentions, not resolutions to be cast aside like the dried-up Christmas tree we leave at the curb. Nor are they aspirations I contemplated while waiting for the clock to strike midnight on New Year’s Eve. Rather, they are longings of my heart that have been growing during this second excruciating year of the pandemic. In two words, they are presence and attention.

I know there are people who say they’ve had a burst of creativity during these dark days, and I wish I were one of them. But for me, it’s been a second year of hunkering down, of putting things on hold in the expectation that surely, very soon, we’ll be back to “normal.” I focused on indulging or distracting myself with small comforts that made the days and weeks and months of “not normal” a little gentler. I still think this is what I needed, and I don’t know that I’d change a thing (except maybe pay a wee bit more attention to my diet).

What I tragically let fall by the wayside during this time was my own creativity, specifically my writing practice. I did not make time or space for reflection, for pondering, or for exploring the depths of my creative spirit. I was not present or attentive to my own needs for what feeds my soul. 

Recognizing this loss, before the year ended I gave myself a gift – an online poetry class with a favorite writing teacher who knows just how to coax me out of my slump. I’ve never been a serious student of poetry, so this was a leap for me; more than anything, I looked to this experience to, as I told the instructor, “help me fall in love with words again.” 

And it was a good start at that; unlike the non-fiction and short stories I typically write, poetry is about precision and economy of language. As William Faulkner said, “A novelist is a failed short story writer, and a short story writer is a failed poet.” I took delight in honing my poems for the class, in excising any element that didn’t contribute, in discovering just the right words to convey the emotion I intended.

I realized that poetry is all about attention – paying attention to the words, yes, but more than that, paying attention to the memories and being present to the feelings of a moment, and finding a way to capture and harness these in language. I was amazed at how the exercises we used to mine our memories brought me vivid images of experiences I hadn’t thought of in years, and became the basis of some of the best work I produced in the class.

So presence and attention are my hopes and aspirations, my mantra, for this year. That means putting the oxygen mask on myself first; being present and attentive to myself, to the desires of my heart, to the needs of my spirit. Present to the memories and the everyday experiences that fuel my creative work. Attentive to the wonder in the smallest of things. Showing up – being present – to write every day. (In a testament to what this takes, I’m writing right now, instead of tending to the myriad of home chores and side hustle deadlines that are calling my name.) 

And then, from that abundance of spirit, I can be more fully present and attentive to the ones I love – from the rowdy dogs that share our lives, to my family and friends who make every day better, and to the wider world that needs all the creativity and presence and attention I can muster.

So here I am, present and accounted for, holding a sheltering hand up to the divine spark of my creative spirit, gently nudging it to catch fire and burn a little brighter in the year ahead.