With the time you’ve got, choose to make your life bigger.
Opt for expression over observation, action instead of passivity, risk over safety, the unknown over the familiar.
Be deliberate, act with intention.
Chase the sublime and the absurd.
Make each day one where you emerge, unlock, excite, and discover.
Twyla Tharp, choreographer and dancer, aged 79
I picked up this wonderful quote from Maery Rose (you can follow her brilliant blog here) She’s brave and uncompromising when it comes to writing about ageing although like myself she’s in the first phase of the third act.
I haven’t the foggiest about how to thrive in old age, but it’s beginning to occupy my mind. Every year about this time I search to find an appropriate word to guide the following year. It’s been a messy time to be truthful. I’ve been saying to everyone, yes I’m fine, and I am, I won’t die!! But I haven’t quite recovered full vim and vigour since my sojourn on the corridor of the local hospital in September. Never mind the loss of confidence when I broke my arm the previous year. A taste of things to come perhaps, a lurking little voice likes to whisper.
So when it comes to picking my word for the year 2020 I’ve resorted to googling good words for “get up and go.” Hilariously they tend to have a Z in them; zest, zing, zip, zeal and full-on maximum z-ness….pazzazz!! I can’t resist pazzazz. It’s so NOT me. It’s sort of loud and sparkly. It screams look at me!! It’s a word I will smile at though, and it’s totally uncompromising. I have to have it!!!
Pazzazz it is then. 2020 here we come!
But it’s not YOU at all, the little voice moans. And I admit I can’t find any images right now that would reflect the pazzazziness I am visualising. (It was a struggle and I had to go back to some images of lillies and irises that I studied in depth during 2018. But even nature has pazzazz if you look for it)
So, feck it, I’m having pazzazz anyway.
Here’s to a much better 2020. May it have for you all the zip, zest and pazzazz you desire. (Or whatever you are having yourself as the late great Marian Finucane used to say.)
Happy New Year, Catherine! Pazzazz is such a colorful word and it does fit with your work, so hopefully it will get you in better spirits and health. My word for this year is “Vision”, such as in eyesight of 20/20, as if conjures up Clarity and Brightness. I am hoping that this world can get better clarity on how to get along with our fellow humans…to make a brighter future.
Hi Harvey, somehow it is far easier to get clarity and brightness in our work than between people! But we have to keep trying. Happy New Year!
Those flower photos definitely fit the word pazzazz. I love that you’ve chosen this word. I do think you go into life with that spirit, even though some days can feel like they’re going in another direction. I chose the word “alive.” It’s the feeling I want to go for this year. No plodding onward for me, at least that’s the goal. Thanks for the mention!
O yes please spare us the plodding onwards! Although to be honest, it lurks there in the corner waiting to be given permission. Love ‘alive.” Alive and kicking! x
Enjoy pazzazzing the 20s, Catherine. Have fun.
“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.”
Rainer Maria Rilke.
Thank you for the gorgeous Rilke poem. I know that the 1920s were called the Roaring 20s……my Granny (father’s side) was dismissed by my hard working Nannan (mother’s side) as a “flapper” Think it was meant to be an insult, but I always loved the idea of it! Happy New Year to you.
Happy New Year and may you have tons of pazzazz come into your life! These images are certainly a wonderful start! I’m starting the year with this word as my guide – discovery. I want to discover where my creative side is going…what is it in the creative world that’s going to make my heart sing! So I’m dabbling in many avenues and finding there’s just not enough time in the day to experience it all, ha! Twyla (via Maery) gave me that push I needed for sure with her words! Hopefully it’ll keep some of the uglies away that come with the phases of the third act! x o
Damn those pesky uglies!! Love that Robin, made me laugh. It’s a good question for myself too. Where is the creative path leading and where to focus? Meanwhile I just seem to be so busy, why I don’t even know. Discovery……it will take you places for sure…..x