Two years ago I found a list of prompts/verbs that someone used seasonally to check in with themselves. The verbs are flexible and open-ended in a way that suits me, and so since then I’ve used them as a way to mark the changes from month to month, season to season, and year to year.
On the first of each month I sit down and turn to a new page in a notebook and try to jot something down in response to each. It’s not a strict practice by any means—there have been months where I haven’t done it, and there are some months where I can only fill in one or two. It’s a practice I keep returning to because it’s a way to note the small things that I might not otherwise consciously acknowledge—the way food preferences, or cooking habits, or books change; and the way too that feelings or anxieties linger or are resolved.
As I turned the page this morning I flipped back to March to copy the list of verbs and found myself holding my breath as I read sentences without the phrase social distancing, thoughts on a concert I went to on the first day of March whose music has since taken up a permanent spot in my library, and the list of places I was winnowing down for a trip this summer. My responses this month feel comparatively contained, but it is still a season I want to note and record—to see the anxiety and sadness and fear that was felt and shared, to see how habits and movements changed, the way time moved, and where and how it was harder to find the small things.
These are the prompts/verbs I use if you would like to adopt them or amend them for yourself, as well as some of my thoughts on this first of April:
Making |
Eating | homemade green sauces and more frozen veggies. Ice cream.
Drinking | water, coffee, herbal tea, natural wine.
Reading | not a lot lately – it’s been hard to read.
Listening |
Watching | reruns.
Bookmarking |
Wanting |
Looking |
Enjoying | baking more.
Waiting |
Wondering |
Hoping |
Loving |the sunlight in my apartment.
Needing | more projects; yeast; shampoo and conditioner.
Wearing | leggings and sweatshirts, but still earrings every day.
Smelling | remnants of a beeswax candle.
Noting | how strangely time moves right now.I still can’t find a way to articulate how slowly it moves, but the way too that single days feel like three.
Knowing |
Laughing |
Thinking | about the mountains.
Daydreaming | about a small house with a yard.
Wishing | that I had a cat.
Feeling |