The Word of the Year 2021

 Brain cancer is...

...welcoming the challenge of ordinary courage.

Last year was a lot of work for us.  Like most, we worked to remain healthy (and in fact we worked to get healthier in key ways) and navigate the pandemic, the environmental disasters, and the social upheavals of year.  We know that millions of people faced tougher issues than we did, and we hurt and marveled as we listened and learned about what others faced.  We know our own story is tiny in comparison, but it’s the only tale we have.

Our own 2020 tale was also a lot hard work for us as individuals and as a couple. For example:

• We worked hard on facing the uncertainty of “terminal cancer” that fades but can never disappear. 
• We worked hard on getting help when we couldn’t do it alone. 
• We worked hard on telling each other what we need and being patient enough and brave enough to give it.  For instance, we recently committed to stopping to listen fully to each other.  No trying to anticipate the message, no interrupting, no laughing when the timing seems right even though we didn’t catch the joke.  Doing this all day?  Very hard.  

2020 was hard because we were learned we were wrong.  We thought we had checked so many difficult life accomplishments off our lists.  

• Anticipatory grieving?  Please!  That was so 2016! 
• Living an “open” life?  You saw it!  2017!  
• Listening for—and finding—the story? We did that for 365 whole days…straight! 

 What we learned in 2020 is that there is no great thing we’ve learned about life that we can call “finished.”  Knowing and understanding an important thing like being open, or listening for the story, is one thing.  Having practiced that yesterday is another.  Practicing it every day?  That’s the actual thing.

What we learned is that we need to get up every morning and do it again.  To admit when we are afraid.  To talk about it.  To admit our vulnerabilities.  To say things, write things, and show things about ourselves that people might not like, or worse, not care about.  To clip birds to our heads knowing that we might be the only ones laughing.  To just show up and be who we are…and who we are striving to become.   All of it.  Every day.

Brene Brown says that, although courage is now associated with heroics, originally courage (from the Latin) meant to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.  In Brown’s reasoning, that's ordinary courage, the kind of courage people display when they make themselves vulnerable by speaking honestly and openly about themselves and their experiences.

In 2020, we learned that courage is a verb. 

Here’s to 2021, when—at least tomorrow—we’ll wake up and courage a little.

Today’s Bloom

From Meridyth.  We think this special “leaf jewelry”—which we have only seen in Wisconsin winters—is called “rime.”  What a magical way to usher in the new year.