Hope is a Daring Emotion

The smell of old books and hot cups of tea. Poetry dancing over 100-year-old pages worn thin with turning. Words beautiful, delicate… and resilient. Words that write and rewrite the stories of our days.

This morning. Here. We are in the hush between years.

The quiet time when old things are passing and the new is about to emerge. We stand at the threshold of our next great adventures lived in mostly ordinary places.

In a normal year, I would take this time to tuck away, burrow deep with my social media and screens both silenced. 2022 however hasn’t been a normal year.

Not one single thing was usual about this trip around the sun. It was both gift and grit served on the squares of my empty planner.

Maybe, you can relate?

A year that is rough with edges, but still profound even in its raw places. A fulcrum for all that’s to unfold beyond it. Sometimes we can’t see what is until we look back at what was. At least I know that’s true for me. I’m not sure my hindsight is exactly 20/20; it might be more like 20/40.

It has been 10 years since I kept a regular, reflective blog. Almost five years since I could even consider myself a writer after that brain injury took my words. Every single moment has been a fight to find my way home to myself.

Christmas came early when my recent branding shoot photos landed at my doorstep on December 14th. It’s the first time in a decade I saw myself again looking back from the images, rather than the shards of all that has been lost.

As the last few dates count down the year that was and the early morning sunlight pools at my foot, hope is rising as an act of rebellion.

This is the trailhead of a new journey. I am so so so grateful you are here. Shared journeys are more of a gift than ever in this digitally divided world.

We weren’t made to manufacture a perfect life that neatly fits into squares online, while we constantly compare our messy reality with someone else’s museum-worthy curation.

As we stand together at the edge of the year, what is it you need hope for?

Hope is a daring, brave emotion.

It can feel dangerous. Like a tightrope walk over Niagara. Even in small amounts.

Especially after grief and loss and trauma.

Please know you aren’t alone.

If words soothe your soul, and you are looking to live a more curious, connected, and creative life, friend, you are in the right place.

I wrote almost every day throughout my years in Africa a decade ago. As I step out into this new season of becoming, of writing about cultivating a wonder habit, I look to do something similar.

I want to share from the messy middle of my creative journey in the daring hope it will invite you deeper into your own.

You don’t need to be a professional artist. You might not even think of yourself as an artist. Maybe more of a hobby maker. Maybe you don’t even feel all that creative. Where ever these words find you. You are welcome.

I don’t know if you’ll find wonder in the small moments we’ll share here, or maybe in the tiny spaces between them.

But I do know I have a passion to offer simple practices and stories and resources and thoughts in the wild hope you can connect more deeply to the wonder all around every single day.

So. Here. We. Go.

For me, it starts with a framing word. A word that refocuses my attention throughout the coming year.

My framing word for 2023 is PRAXIS. It’s the Greek word we get practice from.

For me, 2023 isn’t about tackling lofty goals and lengthy to-do lists. It’s about growing a sustaining creative praxis that moves me in the right direction.

Praxis is the exercise or practice of an art, science, or skill; a guide for living, the practical application of a theory, the active pursuit of a profession, to train by repeated exercises.

What do you need more of in 2023 to move you in the direction of your dreams?

Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. —Chuck Close, American Painter.

What is one way you could show up for yourself and your creativity this coming year? One simple habit you can explore and build on?

I have a couple of ideas scribbled on scraps of paper I’m mulling over.

One thing I’m committing to is showing up for myself by writing/painting 5 days a week. Even if it’s a stroke, a color swatch, or a rough list of bullet points. To turn down the external noise so there is space to breathe and become and create more than I consume.

Let me know one way you want to show up for your creative process in the comments or feel free to drop me an email at hello@dmicheleperry.com.