Pizza. And other words that can change your life.

Okay, a little bit of headline exaggeration going on there. Pizza is more about changing your waistline than your life but... it all knocks on. However, I did have a small life-changing hope for this plate of potential deliciousness at Brewzzi in Boca Raton. It was a siren calling to me from the menu:

Fig, bacon and caramelised onion pizza scattered with arugula (rocket)
But a little asterisk introduced some doubt: *seasonal availability. And this is January: fresh figs aren't available at this time of the year in South Florida, are they? But it was available. Yay! And no they aren't. Oh dear. 

As every cook knows any equivalent dry ingredient has to be cut by half, at least, to replace the fresh version. But the preserved black figs topping my pizza, and my lunch partner's, had been scattered with unadulterated enthusiasm which turned a main course into a very large dessert. When I did manage to detect a sliver of caramelised onion or snippet of bacon through the fructose rush I felt like shouting 'Hallelujah!' with relief. 

Roll on the summertime when I can experiment with fresh figs myself.

Available on Amazon
In the meantime I do have a word that I believe will change my life in the year to come and it's thanks to this little book I read in Barnes & Noble (it's short enough to do that, cover to cover, in about 40 minutes). 

The book's premise is to find one specific word through reflection and questioning and use that word for a year to help achieve your goals, or remind you of your path. 

I love the idea. I was less enamoured by Step 2 in the three step 'find-your-word' process (Looking Up to God) but I decided to skip over that and adapt the steps to suit me.

'What do I need? What's in my way? What needs to go?' are the questions in Step 1. Questions you're supposed to reflect on without the interruption of phones, computers, TV, people, even to-do lists. Not surprisingly (probably for me and for a lot of you) phones, computers and TV cropped up in response to what's in my way and what needs to go! 

There's also a back-up website for the book if you want to know more. 

After a couple of days of letting those questions run through my mind, after recognising the things that I'd like to see happen in my life, and identifying the obstacles (generally self-inflicted) in my way... I have my word. 

Tony's the only person I've told so far so I guess I'm still at the cop-out stage. But once I make it public, here, then it's all about forward motion and living it. Which I have been doing in small ways for the last four or five days. 

practice

practice: placing myself again and again in the path of possibility
practice: a verbal smoothie of discipline, activity and patience

When I get home I'll be sticking it on my fridge. It'll be my desk-top screen saver. A desk-top that's going to be free of the internet. I've already been saying it to myself, out loud, when I recognise that I need to be more patient, less critical, wanting to be right. 

What would your word be? 'Be': that's a good word. We usually make New Year resolutions to 'do'. A single word that helps us 'be' makes much more sense to me.

Hungry Writing Prompt (courtesy of the 'one word' book)
What do you need? What's in your way? What needs to go?

Comments

jem said…
I like the 'word of the year' idea. I've worked to choose mine through the Susannah Conway Unravelling workbook. This year my word is 'shore'. I want to focus on the necessary edges and boundaries of things. I also want to think about that need to prop up weaknesses in structures. Other than my partner, you're the first person I've shared my word with!
Lynne Rees said…
That's a great word, Jem. I'll have to take a look at Susannah Conway's book. 'practice' emerged for me after I read Dani Shapiro's new(ish) book: Still Writing, a memoir and advice for writers, a little like Lamott's Bird by Bird. Good luck with your shores. There is something about sharing the word that makes it feel more concrete, more necessary.