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By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.
— Lao Tzu

Today’s prompt is another tough one:

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)

The first thing that came to my mind this morning when I read this prompt was a person I’ve recently cut out of my virtual social circle.  I expect she hasn’t noticed, and if she has, I assume she doesn’t care, which is the reason I decided to cut ties to begin with.  I don’t know what I did, but she stopped responding to any kind of contact from me some time ago, and I’ve spent way more time than I should have trying to figure out why.  The bottom line is, the relationship was one-sided, except when it suited her, and that isn’t ok with me.

I said that I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life’s work, and try to get a hold of a giant panda.
— from Hard Laughter, by Anee Lamott

Saturday’s prompt:

How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

Well, I wouldn’t say I did, really.  Not intentionally, anyway.  I mean, I spent some quality time with the Princess and the Conductor, and kids are always good at seeing wonder in everyday things.

I took them to see Disney on Ice in February, and the Princess was just tickled that she was old enough to need her own Metro card.  We went to the aquarium in Baltimore a few weeks ago, and the Conductor would have watched the rays swim languidly around their big pool all afternoon if we’d let him.  They were also the catalyst for renting a dragon paddle boat and paddling around the Harbor for a half-hour, though I likely would have dragged David with me to do that even if the kids hadn’t been there.

That’s the thing about me, see: I cultivate whimsy, if not wonder, just as part of who I am.  In Las Vegas, I nixed David’s idea to rent the sensible silver Sebring and insisted we rent the bright blue PT cruiser.  Aimee and I try on giant movie star sunglasses in the drug store and take pictures of ourselves, not caring about anyone else.  I buy David a set of Sham-Wows for his birthday, because he loves the Sham-Wow guy.

As for wonder, it’s generally easy for me to see it.  I work in Washington, D.C., and nearly every day I’m struck by the enormity of life that goes on here, and has gone on here, for hundreds of years.  I pass by the sign that says, “Missing Soldiers Office, Clara Barton, 3d Story, Room 9,” and see words the civil war nurse and founder of the Red Cross wrote in 1863: “I have paid the rent of a room in Washington . . . retaining it merely as a shelter to which I might return when my strength should fail me  under exposure and labor at the field.”  I’m reminded that all the sacrifices of the Civil War weren’t made by the soldiers.  At Red Rock, I told David that it was the most beautiful place we’d ever been together, and to this day, I’m in awe of the beauty we saw in the hard landscape.  When I visit Karen, I usually arrive well after dark, and as I walk to the house from my car, I walk slowly, savoring the gigantic sky over her rural home and marveling at all the things we don’t know about the universe.

Sometimes, though, it’s easy to forget to look for all the wonder around us.  We get caught up in the day-to-day business of living – paying bills, commuting, dealing with surly shop keepers, fighting with loved ones – and we lose sight of how much good there really is in the world.

So, although I don’t necessarily need to cultivate a sense of wonder in my life, in 2011, I can certainly work on taking a moment each day to see the everyday wonder all around me.

The Golden Gate Bridge’s daily strip tease from enveloping stoles of mist to full frontal glory is still the most provocative show in town.
–Mary Moore Mason

I’m going to answer Friday, Saturday, and Sunday’s prompts in three posts today.  We were participating in a curling tournament Friday night and all day yesterday, so I didn’t have a chance to write my responses.

Friday’s prompt was an easy one for me:

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

On our vacation to the west coast this summer, David and I rented bicycles in San Francisco and rode through the city, over the Golden Gate Bridge, and down into Sausalito.  The moment I felt most alive this year was during the ride across the bridge.

It started out sunny and clear, around 4 in the afternoon.  We made our way through the city from the bike rental place, through Ghiradelli Square and several parks, and came to a place where we had to decide whether to ride up a huge hill or carry our bikes up a long, sloping staircase to continue our journey.  David chose to ride, I chose to carry.  We met at the top of the hill, then coasted our way a bit, before climbing the switchbacked path to the bridge.

Once we got to the top, David gave me a kiss and sent me on ahead of him.  I pedaled out onto the bikeway on the western side of the bridge.  To my left was nothing but water and cliffs, huge rocks with white foam around their bottoms.  To the right were at least 6 lanes of traffic, then the city off to the east.  The wind was killer up there, but I had the sun on my face, and I was a happy girl.  I looked across at the water, and I can remember so clearly the way the sun shined its pathway towards us, glinting and rippling.  I remember thinking, This is unbelievable, I’m riding a bicycle across the Golden Gate Bridge.  I said to myself, Remember this.

At each of the two towers, the path turned left, then straight, then right, then straight again.  When I turned left each time, the wind nearly bowled me over.  It took all my energy to keep pedaling into it and to stay upright.  Others were biking in the opposite direction, commuters, I suppose.  I thought how lucky they were to get to do that everyday, knowing even as I thought it that they probably took it for granted.

Once we reached the other side, we carried our bikes down to the pedestrian walkway underneath the bridge so we could get to the visitor’s center on the other side.  When we go there, we looked back to where we had come from, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that, at that exact moment, the legendary San Francisco fog began to roll in.  In under 10 minutes, you could no longer see the city.

It was, literally, a picture-perfect moment, and the one where I felt most alive in 2010.

It is always my wish that you might find enough patience within yourself to endure, and enough innocence to have faith.  It is my wish that you might gain more and more trust in whatever is difficult for you . . . Allow life to happen to you.  Believe me, life is right in all cases.
— from Letters to a Young Poet, by Ranier Maria Rilke

Another good prompt today:

What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

Well, besides work, which I think doesn’t really count, because (a) it can’t be eliminated, and (b) even when I have the day off, I don’t write anymore, I think the clear answer is apathy/depression/laziness/fear.

Unlike Lydia, who doesn’t consider herself a “writer” (though I disagree), I do think of myself that way, and it causes me all kinds of psychic pain when I can’t/don’t/won’t write, here or in my journal.  It causes me to shrink into myself.  Although it sounds contradictory, not writing causes me to focus too much on myself, it magnifies whatever is wrong with me because I never get it out on paper to let it breathe and see that it’s really not so bad after all.

I used to be a prolific journaler, but I haven’t journaled at all in months, and haven’t done so regularly since I went to law school 5 years ago.  I suppose you could argue the blog replaced my journal when I started it in October 2007, but that wasn’t the unguarded, unvarnished truth I can tell my journal.  Not that I’ve been dishonest in my writing here, only that there are some things I’m not willing to share with the internet.

Depression and apathy are tops on the list for my fall off in writing, no question.  I want to write, I think of things I could write about all the time, but I generally lack the energy, patience, and focus it would take to get them down into anything resembling a decent post, so I just don’t bother.

The fear is about being afraid to examine my feelings too closely.  I have a tendency to overanalyze as it is, and I’m afraid of what I might discover if I force myself to freely write about some of the things I feel.  I’m afraid that I might be faced with something that would require me to make a big change in my life, and honestly, I just don’t want to be put in that position.

I can eliminate some of these things by taking steps to get my mental health in order.  I need to go back to see my counselor, that’s for sure.  I also need to set aside time to write, because it’s important — necessary, even — for me to feel like a whole person,  I get too easily sidetracked by any number of things, and writing is the first thing to go, since it’s a solitary activity.  There has to be a way to find a balance; so many people, so many of you, work full time, have full lives outside of work, and still find/make time to write.  So, in 2011, that’s my goal – make more time for writing, and try not to be afraid.