Notes from the Spring Creek Arts Guild

Getting Down To It

I have never found poetry to be interesting unless the poem was set to music, as in song lyrics. At some point in the not-sodistant past, I found an Instagram poet, Samantha Reynolds (@ bentlily) whose poetry really speaks to me. Four days ago she posted a poem that hit me right between the eyes, especially as I was beginning my end-of-theyear reflection and evaluation in preparation for my beginning-ofthe- year planning and intentionsetting. She has graciously given me permission to quote from it, but I encourage you to visit her Instagram account and read it in its entirety—it is called Getting Down To It.

I speak frequently here about living a life of intention, a life that is directed instead of a life that happens by accident or that is pushed around by the many forces that we face. We all have some level of free will, most of us have a ton of free will at our disposal. Exercising that well may be difficult or complicated at times, but we do have it. Because we have free will, we also are responsible for the consequences of our choices, whether those consequences be positive or negative. As much as I obviously think about living intentionally, one would think I was good at doing so, but it is a constant battle for me, as I am sure it is for many people. That is why Samantha’s poem and the caption beneath it hit me so hard. The caption read, “Let’s all try to bring passionate commitment to truly savor every moment of every day of our precious lives.”

The line of the poem that I will use as one of my New Year’s intentions is, “Arouse your own authority, don’t let yourself get away with an indifferent life.” I would not say I live an indifferent life, but I certainly let some aspects of my life slip into indifference from time to time. Over the holidays I became indifferent about my food intake (all those sweets!) and the results are showing up in my waistbands and on my scale. I looked up antonyms for indifference and found these words: Concern, interest, regard, awareness, curiosity, attentiveness, and conscientiousness. I like that list a whole lot better than the list of synonyms for indifference.

Now that I think about it, “arouse your own authority” is the part that causes me trouble. It is easy to cave to the inescapable busy-ness of life, feel powerless, and feel too exhausted to even try. But the indifference eventually leads to negative consequences and I start kicking myself for letting things get that way, like my pantry that appears not to have a floor at all or the pounds that I must now lose again.

Here we are in a new year at a time that invites fresh beginnings. This time of year with the holiday season suddenly over, it may seem a little too quiet and a little too empty. The positive side of this season is that we have plenty of peace and quiet for reflection and introspection. If you are not happy with what you find in your reflecting and introspecting, make a plan to change it, then arouse your own authority, which I assure you that you have, and put the last bit of Samantha’s poem into action: “Author your days with some strictness not just in the calibration of details but as a river moves as it must from one stone to the next.”