a slow start

It's funny that I would pick the title for my first post of 2012 to be "a slow start."  It really hasn't been a slow start to 2012, not for our daily lives anyway.  We've quickly moved back into our routines of work, school, meditation, homework, activities, and worship-at-home.  We've even taken on new opportunities - an academic enrichment program for my oldest and instructional basketball.

In the midst of this busyness, I've been wondering about my writing.  Despite the desperate urge to get back to this space, I cannot form an idea, a direction.  Not even the first thought.  I've been paralyzed by the concept of new beginnings, resolutions, goals, and wondering where I am and where I'm headed.

2011 was supposed to be about finding answers to those questions.  Nearly a year ago, I began this blogging journey with this post.  And, somehow, I feel today as though I haven't come far at all.  Don't get me wrong, the journey has been rich, scenic, memorable, precious.  I wouldn't trade this past year - the intentionality, the slowing, the learning, the exploration, the journey back to Mother earth - for anything in the world. 

So, as I consider 2012 and reconsider my purpose in writing, I really have no idea where I am or where I'm going.  That dissonance I've written about. . . it's still there.  I feel it in my heart, literally.  That unsettled feeling like I'm searching for something but I can't remember what.  That jittery feeling as if something is about to happen. I'm constantly reminded of the lyrics from a West Side Story tune (Something's Coming):

Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows. 

Around the corner,
Or whistling down the river,
Come on, deliver
To me!
Will it be? Yes, it will.
Maybe just by holding still,
It'll be there! 

I don't know what's in store for 2012.  

And that something inside me that always provides a sense of direction is a little sleepy this year.

Maybe I need to find a single word to serve as motivation, such as my dear friend Claudine...

Maybe I need a good book to get me going...

Maybe it is reconnecting with my blogger friends who are busy working on their wishes for the year...

Something IS coming . . . oh. so. slowly!