Each year on January 1st, I put together a vision board. My scissors, glue stick, and magazines are ready on the table for my 2025 creation, which I hope will guide me in shaping who I want to be and what I want to achieve in the upcoming year.
In recent days, I have pussy-footed around, uncertain of how to derive significance from the activity nearly a year ago. Upon reviewing journal entries related to the board's creation, I discovered that I had selected a word for the year and built the theme around it.
Courage
In the meantime, I had completely forgotten about that choice of words. However, the tattered and dented foam core was not forgotten; it lived above the mirror in my dressing room.
The vision board consists of sayings and images meant to encourage and support my conscious efforts throughout the year but the central focus is a negative exposure of a tree. Diverging from the trunk are strong branches above ground and rooted tendrils below. As part of a magazine article the words Fortitude, Flourish, Explore the Impossible dot the leafy bloom of the tree. I added a piece at the bottom:
Some call it grit. Staying power. Survival. That magical force that fuels us to be brave in adversity, endure and press on.
It seems to be the way that I lived my life this year.
Tattering pieces of myself fell away like those parts of the creation that fell off at various times throughout the year. A photo of a tiny woodland character made of acorns and twigs standing on a human hand with the words I pasted on the photo: Into the hands of others. I think that came off in late June or maybe in May. It coincided with John's retirement party, his admission to the hospital, and coming home to hospice care.
A photo of butterflies in a yellowing sun of a summer day, perhaps that came off first, may in April. About the time we had hope that surgery would give John just a bit more time with us, maybe see us through to his goal of meeting two new grandchildren.
One last piece fell off and I truly don’t remember when. It reminds me of a barn I frequented when I was something of a new writing and gained so much inspiration from that smell of muck and hay. The words printed on the photo: THE FORTITUDE WE GAIN ALONG THE WAY. While it had fallen to the floor, I had picked it up put it next to a picture of my dad from long before I was born.
A female figure on a dock in a yoga pose, water sparkling on an autumn day, the message: Learn to Love yourself. If only it were that easy. How to survive the darkness. Yes, please tell me.
My vision board has been rooted in courage. It has given me a sense of accomplishment as I look at it now. A photograph of a laughing little girl reminds me of the day Eloise and I went puddle jumping. A flying hawk like the one that stayed in my front yard on a Sunday afternoon, picking away at a squirrel. In bold letters the word WRITE. I have had to muster all the strength I can to write in light of the anguish of loosing John.
A Buddha in a resting position with the words here and now have reminded me many times over the last year to stay present to the moment, and there have been many moments that I would rather have escaped but found courage to carry on.
I’d rather run like hell from the image of a woman sitting with her legs akimbo, placidly writing in a journal. Shelves of books behind her. I don't know if she fits me anymore or even if we can somehow be akin.
If I wasn't certain before, I am now that living in the in between is like the thinning veil between the dead and the living. The veil seems to have dropped for me as my husband is here with me, not in body but his spirit is all around and so I find meaning and perspective in the very thought of the link between the physical and the spiritual.
I’ve got another foam board waiting and since I have Covid, nowhere to go but deeply within. I will choose another word for 2025 and I will build a vision board around the meaning of that word.
For now, I am living with this board and the things I found to be important to me when 2023 became 2024. I am living through an extremely life-changing year. John’s passing, the birth of Riley and Sunny, and grief so profound. I am still living, though. Still putting one foot in front of the other. Still finding Joy in the simple pleasures.