Write yourself into a new day
If you want to find a renewed sense of celebration today, try this writing exercise:
- Set your timer for 10-minutes.
- Brainstorm all the possible “agenda items” for your day.
- Don’t let the judge or critical editor come in; write down everything.
- Allow the sense of play and possibility.
Here’s a sample from my own writings…
Sherry’s possible agenda for the day:
- Walk around the neighborhood until I spot an orange-red tulip.
- Smile like a kid, without showing any teeth.
- Re-learn just one chord on the pink ukulele.
- Buy loaves of warm, fresh bread at the market and give to the homeless.
- Sit and do nothing, face turned to the sky.
- Sip my coffee as if it is the last cup on the last morning ever.
- Tell my mom something I love about her that she doesn’t know.
- Think of something I don’t yet know about myself.
- Lie in the grass in a tank top and feel it tickle my skin.
- Google who first knew to remove the skin from fava beans.
- Wonder about other life on other planets. Taste dragon fruit.
- Draw a cartoon of a small hero riding dragon fruit to save the world.
- Organize the books on my shelf according to the age I was when I first read them.
- Sing “Amazing Grace” out loud in a public place.
- Write a secret admirer letter to the person at a random street address.
- Search out a scent I’ve never smelled.
- Write it down in a thumb-sized notebook.
- Tell Miss Ferris that you still remember her kindness from 45 years ago.
- Listen to “Big Bad John” and think about riding bikes in the basement with my brother.
- Holler “hello” in a cave.
- Give one of my silver dollars to the first child I see.
- Leave another silver dollar in an oak tree for someone to find who likes to climb.
- Ask friends over to jump rope and chant, “Cinderella dressed in yellow…”
- Wonder if cave people kissed.
- Show up unexpected at Ian’s door and ask him to waltz to “La Valse D’Amelie.”
- Find a body of water, a pier, and a sunset.