2020 Vision

I hear people talk about Vision Boards, and I think of the craft projects we made in elementary school where we cut out pictures of things we liked and glued them to a poster board.

A Google search brought up this article  on vision boards from HuffPost.

"So, what's the big secret to creating a vision board that works? It's simple: Your vision board should focus on how you want to feel, not just on things that you want."

In less than a second, I identified the two things I want to feel: Calm and Strong. I didn't have to think about it. I already knew it. 

I find calm and strong to work in tandem. I feel it when I'm walking long distances, surrounded by the sky, nothing obstructing my view. I felt it walking the desert at night in Utah and Nevada near Lake Powell--not just calm, but strong. I used that exact word--strong--when I described an evening at our campground, watching a sun set silently into the desert. I felt strong walking the shores of the Gulf for hours on end, sometimes walking slowly, sometimes very quickly, taking huge strides to match my huge smile. 

The water and space brings me a calm, and that calm makes me feel strong and present. Here I'm talking about vision boards, and I name the two things I want to feel daily instead of only when I'm on vacation somewhere beautiful, and I realize that part of the calm and exhilaration I feel on long sandy shores or in the desert at evening (I don't like the desert in the daytime) is partially due to my ability to see for miles around me. 

I don't like crowds, cities, crushing of bodies, harried events. I don't like feeling closed in, pressed, my view obstructed. I don't know if this is a preference or a condition or an explanation. But it's my life, my body, and I don't have to put myself in those situations if I don't feel like it.

When I think of calm, I think of order and composition and tidiness. I think of things put in their places, nothing strewn or neglected. Noise is disorder. Small talk that delivers no insight or beauty is noise. Clutter obstructs my view. View is flow. Water flows. Vision flows.

When creating my top 3 of 2019, I questioned my initial appraisal. How could I say I enjoyed two weeks on a beach more than two weeks of road tripping all over the most beautiful and diverse places in our country? (Redwoods and Crater Lake and Oregon Coast and valleys and the Cascade Mountains?)

Was it the timing? Or was it a feeling?

It was a feeling. I loved how I felt on the warm beach, hearing the waves night and day, indoors or out. I loved the calm. And I loved how strong I felt walking about nine miles per day on the shores.

I feel strength in calm. Calm comes from order. Order means I am not seeing clutter in my surroundings. I am not hearing chatter around me or in my brain. It means I have accomplished what I needed to do.

2020 Vision for me is going to be Calm, Strength, and Vision.