While I was having new photos taken for the website and all of that, my photographer Lily Tapia mentioned that she planned to take some time off after Christmas and think about her word for the year. Thank you, Lily. Picking a word for the year used to be part of my end of the year practice then I don’t know what happened, I stopped. I forgot.
2026 needs a word. When I say that I am picking a word for 2026, I am selecting a word that embodies more of what I would like for the coming year, it is a word to remind me of my hopes and dreams for the upcoming year, and it is the word I will continue to come back to throughout the year when I am feeling aimless or fearful.
Are you ready for my pick?
Play.
Yes, I want to remind myself to play more. To have more fun, to stop being too serious, and to welcome spontaneity. More importantly, it is also play in the sense of trying things out for the sake of experimenting, an invitation to stay rooted in the process, to let go of the outcomes.
When I was little, I had a great imagination. I could make up games, mostly games for myself. I would build things with blocks and Lincoln Logs. I had an entire Barbie and Breyer horse world set up in the garage. I loved making balsa wood airplanes and beaded swatches of cloth.
None of these endeavors had to do with learning something new, becoming the best, or creating something that was meant to last. Play had to do with being in the moment, learning by doing and sometimes doing again, and most importantly trying something out until you were ready to do the next thing.
I still have a great imagination. The difference is that I have a tendency to assign rules and structure to my creativity and imagination. For example, I love to read. I read all genres and formats. I forget to allow myself to read purely for pleasure. It is okay to read something that is frivolous and frothy. Or the basket full of wool yarn in my office, it is an invitation to make a scarf as well as permission to just knit because knitting is fun.
I am going to play the rest of 2025 and get some practice.
Share your words for 2026.
Wishing you all the best.
