I was standing in our dining room, sorting papers on the table and thinking about my year of grace. I wonder what my word for 2012 should be?
And, BAM! It was there. A word popped into my head, seemingly out of nowhere.
Pffft. I can’t pick that word, I thought, almost laughing out loud. What?! Where did this come from? It’s just not fitting for me and my I’ll-stay-behind-the-scenes-please personality.
My previous words of discipline, balance and grace were good, responsible, safe words. This one seemed risky.
Maybe my fear of the word is the very reason I should pick it. I argued with myself. (Or was I arguing with the word, or was it God? Did this word come from Him?) It’s only October, so I can still change my mind if the word doesn’t fit come January.
So, I made an agreement with the word, or the giver of the word (whoever that was), that maybe, just maybe, I would find time to entertain her in 2012. I whispered, barely letting myself hear, that my word might be … (is anyone looking?) … DANCE.
Just days after my dining room agreement, I helped at a party in my son’s second grade classroom. I was to help the head room mom at the candy walk station. Similar to the cake walk game, kids walked on numbers until the music stopped, and we played until everyone got one candy bar. The first group of kids had all received their candy and there was time before they moved to the next station, so the head room mom had an idea. “I’ll just keep playing the music and everybody can dance,” she happily proclaimed.
And dance they did. All of the kids, in all three groups that rotated through our station, freely moved, jumped and danced around the front of the classroom. The head room mom jumped right in, too, showing off crazy moves like the sprinkler and lawnmower. I clutched my bucket filled with numbers for the game and shuffled my feet back and forth, like a seventh grade boy at a junior high dance. How come I didn’t get assigned to the cookie making station? Or the Bingo game? I wondered. Is this some sort of joke?
My body wasn’t moving much, but loud thoughts were pounding in my head. Thoughts of fear and freedom and this strange longing to be more like the kids spinning around in front of me. Ok, ok! I thought. Maybe I do need this word.
I haven’t signed up for a dance class or participated in a flash mob in a mall. Last year, I learned to run, and in doing so, learned much more about living life than the actual act of running. I suspect learning to dance will be similar. Yesterday, Emily Freeman wrote about being an artist. “Art isn’t so much the things we do but the way in which we do them,” she said.
It isn’t so much the way I dance, but the way in which I live. A life with a little less fear and a little more freedom to move with the music. Or at least that’s what I think at the beginning of the year. Maybe when December rolls around I’ll have to throw a dance party. 
(And I can’t believe I just wrote that in public. It will certainly be an interesting year!)
So, here we go, 2012! Let’s DANCE!
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I have not been very good at writing about my “word” for the year for the past three years, because I haven’t been very consistent at writing. But, I highly recommend the exercise of choosing a word for the year, even if you never write about it.
If you are interested in picking a word, or you already have and wonder what to do next, I suggest checking out these places:
Mandy at Messy Canvas had a great post called What Do I do With My Word?
One Word 365 is a community of One Worders (is that a word?) and a place to share your word. (I’ll be linking this post over there, too.)
