Drawn to the Cliffs
Dear Friends,
I’ve spent these early days of the new year making space. I returned the giant stroller that’s been on loan to me since Nora was an infant, freeing up my foyer for the first time. I’ve packed up the holiday decorations and reinforced the boxes, knowing that the next time I open them, I’ll be on another continent. I’ve cleaned out closets and dressers and made plans for rearranging Nora’s room.
I’ve also been spending time contemplating a word for the year. In 2022, I chose “PRESENT” and promptly forgot about it. But for 2023, choosing “DELIGHT” ended up being a meditation for a year’s worth of writing. Having the word as an intention for the year turned my focus towards the glimmers, towards levity.
For my family, 2024 transforms a distant plan, moving to Kyrgyzstan, into a tangible countdown. We still have a solid 8 months left in the states, so I want to be present, but the transition stays front of mind. Everything takes on the label of “last”--sometimes for now, sometimes forever. The last Christmas in our house, for now. The last winter in Alexandria, for now. The last year at my daughter’s preschool.
For 2024, the word I’ve chosen is “ADAPT.”
I wrote a bit back in the fall about the idea of adaptation vs. suffering–how they’re not as separate as they may seem. Discomfort paves the path of adaptation, but adaptation is also a human skill. It is hard, but not impossible.
In choosing “ADAPT,” I’m choosing what I want to notice this year. Not just times of pure struggle, but moments in which I am moving towards adjustment, in the direction of thriving.
Greta, my therapist, and Natasha, my should-be-therapist, of course had questions about my pick.
“How do you see adaptation coming into play in your life right now?”
“Is that a skill you want to build? Are you wanting to take some pressure off yourself to make things a certain way?”
But there’s a thing about picking a “word for the year”--you choose it blind. A choice in January may have some thematic tie-in to the coming year’s experience. But nothing is certain. You can choose “GROW” in a year of stagnation. “TRAVEL” in a year where the world locks down. “ADAPT” in a year where you cling to the familiar with every appendage you’ve got.
Choosing “ADAPT” in a year of planned transition feels right, at the moment. It feels like a wish for myself in this new year of so much change. But there’s also an element of choosing a word where you just have to wait for the metaphors to show up.
My daughter Nora, who is four, and often full of quippy one-liners, was arguing with me about plans this past weekend.
“I want to do art projects with paint,” she demanded.
“Mmm. Today we need to take down the Christmas tree,” I said.
“But when can we paint?”
“At some point in the future,” I told her.
“The future is not real life,” she protested.
The future is not real life.
As much as her little-kid brain meant it merely as a boundary push, there’s something existentially true about these words. The future doesn’t yet exist. It can be planned-for and imagined. You can place a down payment, even. But until it arrives, it’s just pretend.
Real life is only this moment. The breath in my lungs. The silence of being alone in the house for the first time in a month. The white winter light shining through my front window. The words I’m typing on the screen.
In the past week, I’ve visited three of DC’s smaller art museums: the Kreeger with my sister at the end of her visit, then the Rubell and the Phillips Collection with my friend Elizabeth.
The Kreeger and the Phillips both had paintings by Monet that I’d never seen before. Like every fan of impressionism, I’ve seen plenty of water lilies. I’ve even been to the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris and visited the gardens in Giverny where Monet did so much of his work. When I think of Monet’s paintings, I think of lightness, transparency. Shimmering reflections on the water. The softness and impermanence of flowers and leaves.
And then this week, for the first time, I got to see his paintings of cliffs.
The colors he used are largely the same–lots of purple, green, pinkish brown, and blue. But the movement in the paintings feels so different. The light doesn’t bounce back so easily–it shows the depths of the rock face. The contrast of shadow. The ridge line of something looming, unscalable, permanent.
La Falaise, Pourville (1897); Val-Saint-Nicolas, near Dieppe (Morning) (1897); Les Falaises aux Petites - Dalles (1884)
Perhaps I am drawn to the cliffs because they’re so different from what I’ve seen of Monet before. But it feels like more than that. It feels like the first whisperings of “ADAPT.”
Am I drawn to the difficult? Will I, too, be able to approach a cliff with a soft touch? Will the year before me feel like a climb…or a jump? Am I about to shift in a way that makes my art, my work, my perspective, totally different?
For now, I don’t have any answers. After all, as my daughter reminds me, metaphorical cliffs aren’t real life. But I’m going to notice what I notice this year. I’m taking a step towards the cliffs, even if it’s just along the polished floors of the museum. I’m going to look closer and see what comes.
Take good care,
Dot
News & Updates
Start something new in 2024: a new pattern of caring for yourself. Whether you want to explore your past or consider your future, we are here to hold space for you in the new year.
Our team has immediate openings for daytime and evening sessions, ages 6 to adult:
Kristopher Forren, MA, ATR-P specializes in working with adults and older adults who are experiencing life transitions that bring feelings of depression, anxiety, or grief. Kristopher also works with LGBTQIA+ adults seeking to explore their identity and express their authentic self. Daytime and evening appointment times available.
Katie Gaynor, MA, ATR-P has openings available for new clients ages 6-adult looking for help processing grief, stress, anxiety and depression, trauma, or life transitions. Afternoon and evening appointment times available.
Adele Stuckey, LPC, ATR-BC has availability for new clients seeking therapy for couples work, LGBTQIA+ affirming therapy, perinatal mental health, anxiety, depression, or trauma. Daytime appointment times available.
Reach out today to schedule your free 15-minute consultation with one of our therapists.
Links We Like
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety.
Ten ways to support your mental health in 2024 (I like numbers 7 and 8!). (NYT)
“You’re never stuck. (A belief is a thought we keep on thinking. You can change your thoughts.)” Love this list of intentions for the new year.
Would you live like a monk for a month?
“There are so many messages from the culture that tell us there are two kinds of drinkers—those who have alcohol use disorder and those who don’t—as if there’s a bright line between the two groups and if you happen to fall on one side of it, you can drink your head off without concern. But drinking exists on a spectrum, and you don’t have to be on the far end of that spectrum to realize you need to make a change. You don’t have to have a drinking problem to have a problem with drinking.”
Could they be ghosts? Loved the illustrations on this, and the human brain’s attempts at normalcy never fail to fascinate. (New Yorker)
Can being in the presence of beauty make you feel fluttery and faint? New obsession: reading about Stendhal Syndrome.
What should self care actually look like for parents?
Get closer. Les Falaises aux Petites - Dalles (1884) by Claude Monet:
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What a treat to have forgotten that it was newsletter day and then gasp with delight when I realized what was waiting. Here’s to adapting and, for me, redirecting.