Measuring Hopes
Reflections On 2022
Whose 2022 turned out exactly as they hoped?
I thought about titling this post Measured Hopes. That sums up how most of 2022 felt to me. As a second-time entrepreneur, I entered my first year of this new business with a focus on building my foundation slowly and accurately. I have worked on creating smooth operating processes and ensuring I can give my clients a great experience while providing them with excellent and quality work. Also, I’ve been investing regular time in my art practices - making the time to write consistently and to make visual art (mainly collage, some drawing, some small paper sculpture). I’m learning fun new things about my artistic disciplines and growing my self-confidence as an artist.
As I set out on the path of doing business I tucked some delicious hopes into my pockets. Throughout the year, I would pull them out, turn them over, and examine them closely to see if some aspect of them was coming to fruition. At the end of summer, there were a couple of hopes I let go of as I was gently but firmly reminded that the timing of things is very much not in my control.* I’ve still got a couple of last year’s loved hopes tucked away, and I’m compiling new ones to daydream about this year.
Of course, it is scary to articulate some of the hopes I’m carrying for 2023. I have decided to not let fear stop me:
~I hope to be accepted into one or more emerging artist residency programs (for both my writing and my visual art)
~I hope to begin the public speaking portion of my work sometime this year
~I hope to publish many more pieces of my writing this year
~I hope to do more authenticity and sensitivity reviews for clients this year
~I hope to edit at least one memoir, creative nonfiction, or wellness/personal growth manuscript this year
Cheers to being scared and doing it anyway!
Hope is not exactly measurable. It’s a qualitative experience all tangled up with threads of emotion, imagination, intuition, symbolism, sound+song, vibration, faith, expectation. I have more questions about hope than I have answers; more experience carrying the flaming torch of hope than describing the impact of hope’s illumination.
In the spirit of measurements, here is some data to help me acknowledge and celebrate the success I’ve had in my first year of business:
My client load quadrupled!
I was gratified to start out with one client- The Center for Victims of Torture (thanks, CVT!). From there I was able to build, and over the course of the year, I was honored and grateful to get to work with Ride Free Fearless Money, Artists To Watch, Telling Queer History, and the National Association of Social Workers - MN Chapter. I currently work with four of these clients on an ongoing basis. THANK YOU to all my clients, past and current: you are wonderful to work with, you challenge me in good ways, and supporting your missions in the world feels good.
I get to do different types of work regularly!
My projects encompass:
freelance writing
substantive editing and copyediting
proofreading
social media content creation and social media strategy
digital communications strategy
communications consulting
and, curriculum creation and delivery for communications education
Lucinda, smiling big, with their copy of Trusting Change
I got my first mention in a published book!
I was totally thrilled to work with Literary Minister Karen Hering a number of years ago as she developed the manuscript for her book on navigating change. I conducted a sensitivity review to ensure use of conscious and inclusive language, and provided an early read with feedback around accuracy of the book’s somatic and somatic healing references. Karen and her publisher were really in for a ride as, together, they navigated the way the pandemic, the uprising, and overall political upheaval impacted the content of her book. Many adjustments took place and changes were made! I was delighted to be thanked in Karen’s acknowledgements. Trusting Change: Finding Our Way Through Personal and Global Transformation was published in the fall of 2022, and you can get your copy online here.
I published two long-form freelance writing pieces!
A celebration of the ten-year anniversary of CVT’s programming in Ethiopia, and the first in a series of four archive features celebrating Telling Queer History’s ten years of providing storytelling gatherings to the LGBTQ+ community.
I was selected as a mentee for a local author’s writing mentorship program!
What a gift, to work with accomplished poet and writer Naomi Cohn. She selected me for a space in her writing mentorship, and guides me to focus on the self-care and self-love aspects of my work as a writer. She’s been helping me address imposter syndrome, love and work with my inner gremlin, understand arts funding, build connections and join in the local writing community, and practice believing in myself as a writer who has gifts to bring to the world. This experience has given me a great boost of confidence and is building my skills to make my life as a writer much more sustainable.
My professional network is growing!
I joined the LGBTQ+ Editors Association when it started up mid-year, and have been active in our Slack forums. In a lovely twist, a dear acquaintance whom I met years ago at an anti-racism weekend workshop, who is an editor and writing coach, saw me in the Slack group, reached out to me, and we got to reunite and bond over coffee and our mutual love of this work. It’s been wonderful to reconnect, and I look forward to meeting other local folks in the editing and wordsmithing community. I’m especially excited to meet folks when I go to the ACES annual conference, in person, in March 2023!
In the spirit of hope’s illumination
Winter is an ideal time to move into a more internal state of reflection, rest, and contemplation. As you practice staring at the sky, concentration / meditation techniques, journaling, and other means of reflection, you might notice that specific hopes start to emerge in your thoughts.
I offer to each of you this somatic hope practice. It is a way for you to engage your embodied nature in a spirit of inquiry around your hopes:
If possible, name your hope. Then, with your hope firmly in mind, ask of it the following questions:
What does this hope feel like in my body? What changes in my body’s sensations when I imagine that what I hope for is actually happening?
What would this hope sound like? Smell like? Taste like?
What image(s) come up when I focus steadily on this hope? If this hope were actualized, what would it look like?
Is there a word, sound, image, or other piece of somatic intelligence that I can keep working with beyond this moment, so I can stay in relationship to this hope as it lives and evolves within my heart-mind and my soul?
Blessings to you throughout your journey in 2023.
*At the end of September 2022 I was hospitalized for five days. After a wild medical testing journey, it was discovered that for at least a year, probably more, I have been fighting a deep infection in the soft tissue of my chest, in an area called the mediastinum (between my lungs, esophagus and trachea). Thanks to the power of extremely strong antibiotics and the technology of a central (PICC) line delivering said antibiotics directly into my heart, I have been able to fight off the infection and have been healing well. It’s amazing to feel energy levels return that I literally haven’t experienced for more than a year.
