This Is Not The List You're Looking For

I haven't managed to set up a list for 2010 yet. I've been going in another direction. Shutter Sisters has a One Word project which helps photographers focus their shooting goals month to month. It's also something people use to focus their lives either on a monthly or yearly basis.

I didn't mean to choose it but when they mentioned it at the beginning of the year I started to think about it. The first word that popped into my head was "yes." The next one was "NO!" As in "Good god, no, I can't do that!" So I kept thinking about it for a while and trying to think of a different word, a better word, a more comfortable word.

I didn't find one.

So I concentrated a bit on how I could manage to focus my year around "yes." As I've told some of you privately I think the purpose of the exercise is to go for it full force, to reach for "YES!" If I'm perfectly honest I do not think I'm capable of "YES!" I might be capable of "Yes." I can certainly point in that direction. For the record, though, if I manage "yes" I'm calling it a success.

When I said all this to jrh she said, "Do you feel you don't say yes enough?" I do not. And when I do I tend to wait so long that saying yes is moot. I panic, I try to think through all the eventualities, I don't feel I can so I can't even try. If I concentrate on saying yes maybe I can get to do and see and feel a lot of new and interesting things. Things I like, deserve and maybe even need.

Audio Girl said, "Does that mean if I ask you to go out all night and drink like a fish on a weekday you have to say yes?" No, I replied. Absolutely not. To me it means paying attention to what I really want to be doing with myself both day to day and over the superarc of my life and saying yes to things that will further those designs.

You guys, I'm not going to lie, it's fucking scary. I'll give you a list of things I've said yes to recently tomorrow but tonight I'll give you just the one to whet your appetite.

Tonight someone convinced me to meet a dog. She sounds perfect. I don't know if I want to get another dog yet. It makes me sad to even think of it. And yet...I said yes to meeting her because I want to meet her. She's a lot of things I love about dogs and she's in a situation where I'm able to say no thank you. I didn't say, "YES! I'll take her bring her and her leash and her bowl to my house immediately!" But I did say, "Yes, I'd really like to meet her. When can I do that?"

So, yes. This year, yes.

Hold me!