Brave Bloomability
Starting is the hardest part of anything new. But if it's worthwhile, once you start, you gain a momentum that allows you to grow, stretch, and bloom.
Last year was a challenging, yet beautiful year for me. I lived many beginnings and many endings. Each brought excitement, often work, and sometimes heartache and sorrow.
Each required bravery.
Throughout 2013 I felt like the universe and God kept directing me to the theme of bravery. Quite literally, the word brave seemed to be popping up everywhere in my day-to-day life, especially during an intimidating transition or change. Like a reoccurring motif, the word would be spelled out on gifts, letters, and advertisements. I even caught glimpses of it on the faces of loved ones and on the faces of strangers—silent beckonings, calling me to be brave.
I've turned brave over and around in my head for quite sometime now, allowing it to be my personal theme: the word that sees me through.
Now I'd like to join brave together with another word, a made-up word. Sharon Creech, a children's novelist—whose books shaped me into the woman I am today—created Bloomability. One of her books, titled by that word, has a character named Keisuke. English is not Keisuke's first language, so often when he tries to speak it, he doesn't say things how native English speakers would. Classic example? He says bloomable when he's meaning to say possible. Isn't that lovely? Bloomable = Possible.
“He mangled English, but the words he substituted were often better than the right ones.”
I think of the word bloomability as holding a meaning even beyond the definition of possibility. For me, and I think for most of Creech's readers, Bloomability denotes aspects of the word possibility and the word bloom.
Sometimes, it's hard to see our possibilities, our bloomabilities, through. It takes bravery to turn a possibility into a reality. It takes bravery to bloom. But it is during our brave bloomabilities, those experiences that try and pull us, that we flower into something more than we could have ever imagined. It is in our brave bloomability that we find our deepest joy.
With the new year on it's way, I've decided to embark on another new beginning. I've created this blog for me to record and discuss brave bloomabilites in my life, in the lives of others, and maybe even in literature, film, and song.
I'd love for you to take this journey with me, follow along, read, and comment whenever something I post strikes a chord with you.
Are there any brave bloomabilities you've gone through? How did those experiences shape you?
—Alexandra