Greetings fellow word journeyer’s and welcome to the August update! Have you reached the “downhill” point with your word yet? Are you merrily coasting along? Or was August a struggle for you… like it was for me? Whatever this month was for you, I am so glad you are here! The link up is at the bottom of this post!
The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change. ― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
I have heard those crickets all month as I spent time trying to “just absorb the world around me with no goal except to see.” And what did I discover in all this time… that the world has lots of grey areas and very few black and white spaces where things are clear and simple.
As you all know, it has been a year of health issues for me… lots of tests which I would think would be very black and white, but instead I have found myself firmly in the Grey Area and I have spent much of the month frustrated and irritated.
I have lots of check marks in the problem column but few in the solutions column. My desire is to be in the World of Black and White… problem → solution = happiness.
Then I had a bit of a Light Bulb Moment…It suddenly occurred to me that Yutori is a practice that was built for a life where the Grey Areas are greater than the clear cut Black and White World… and no, the serendipity of spending a year with Yutori is not lost on me as August draws to a close!
So this month, after wasting a good bit of time railing against the lack of answers… I turned back to the Yutori description and settle into this:
Just absorbing the world around us with no goal except to see.
Firmly settled into the grey areas of life… absorbing the sometime silence of the day… birdsong has been replaced by the drone of crickets reminding me that almost nothing will last forever except maybe those blasted grey areas.
But perhaps, there is some comfort in those grey areas… a calm, sometimes stillness, that hums under the surface of everyday life. At least that is what I am hoping for!
Thank you all so much for joining me this month. I am eager to read your update so please leave the link to your post below!
I am sorry you are in the gray area when it comes to solutions that is so frustrating!! I am grateful that I am not dying of anything (that I know of!) but I wish there was a treatment for some of the symptoms I deal with that affect my quality of life.
I think dealing with the gray areas is hard for all of us — we’d all like the solutions to life’s problems to be clear cut, but the reality is that they rarely are. I think you’ve been going an excellent job of dealing with the uncertainty. Health issues are particularly challenging to deal with when you aren’t getting answers, and whether you chose your word this year with them in mind or not, it is serving you very well.
I really dislike “not knowing” when there are questions and often make things worse for myself by frantically searching for the answers. I do hope you can practice absorbing and seeing with no other goals (but I’m also going to hope for some answers at the same time!)
Yutori has turned out to be such a fabulous choice for your word this year Kat. I’m sorry for your grey areas, but I’m happy that Yutori is guiding you. “no goal except to see” is a great way to be.
Oh gosh yes. I am a solutions person and having to wait for X Yor Z drives me bonkers. You have done incredibly well to enter the grey zone with a large dollop of Zen. Clearly your word was meant to be. My mantra at times like this is “This too will pass”…Hugs, xx
I used to crave the sure thing, the knowing places . . . where everything is clear and I could know – for certain – just what was what. The older I get, though, the more I realize that’s just not . . . How Life Work! So, gradually, I’m getting more comfortable with ambiguity. It’s not always comfortable, but it does help me focus on the moment at hand. That said, surety . . . in matters of health . . . is something worth fighting for. Advocate for yourself and your health, even while learning to live in the gray areas. XOXO
Gray areas can be frustrating and hard. I wonder if they are more prevalent as we age. You are wise to notice what is because sometimes that is all we can do. Your word was aptly chosen.