BLOGG # - 2018--THE YEAR OF COMPLICITY

A few days ago,while I was having coffee with a friend, she told me  that "Complicit" is the official
word for 2018. I said I was not aware this term existed. She said it did and this year this particular word was chosen because of a question a reporter asked the wife of the current President of the United States. She was asked if she was complicit with the ideas and decisions of the president- her husband. She replied that she was complicit with the good ones but not complicit with the bad ones.
A  red light went on in my head. Can one be "complicit" with something "good?" I thought "complicit" had a negative feeling. I was right.  I looked it up on Google and sure enough the definition in both the Webster and Oxford dictionaries state that to be complicit with something does  usually mean it is  illegal or at least shady.
I decided to check with the internet to see if "complicit" really is the official word of 2018. It is. It did not tell me why we need an official "word for the year".

I also looked up to see if there was an  official word for the year 2017. Yes there was. The word for 2017 was"Youthquake"
I understood that of course. If I am clear on one thing it is the impact of the youth on Culture today.
I admire their awareness and cool assessment of the world they live in. I also saw how the youth of  America woke up last year to the fact that Democracy in the U.S. is not the perfect democracy they were taught to believe and I like their reaction to this. It is even better this year as they bravely hold the Adult world accountable for the gun laws and protest the blatant  murdering of themselves  in the schools and on the streets. So yes, last year was their wakening to their flawed world in 2017 and the impact was great. The word Youthquake was appropriate.  On a less serious subject-their impact on the world of fashion is huge. The major designers go out on the streets to see what the youth is wearing then go into their Ateliers, copy their ideas and the "Fashionable" at great expense walk around trying to look like them.

The word for 2018 on the other hand is disconcerting to say the least. Is it appropriate?  Does it mean we will all be involved in complicity this year? I fear we may well be. It will be very difficult to untangle ourselves from the webs our present leaders are weaving. We will be involved whether we want to or not. Being complicit in shadiness, illegality and dishonesty seem to be the key words this year. That is why it was chosen I guess.
I also found out you can participate in the choosing of the "word of  the year." You can send in your choice and the most frequently chosen word will be chosen.  You can be part of it all. I decided not to do this as I can never fill out a form on line without making a mistake.

 However I know I do not want to waste this year on such a negative word and I do not want to be involved in complicity-good or bad so I have decided to choose my own word for 2018. The word I have chosen is  "Bliss!"
I am delighted with this word and immediately decided to celebrate it by blissfully painting a sketch of a bouquet of tulips I bought to cheer me up. The tulips,blissfully, were a rhapsody of riotous orange, red, yellow and mauve Easter colours- You can see the result above.
So my advice to you -again- is choose your own 2018 Word Of The Year-choose carefully and beautifully and then choose to live it abundantly all year.  Definitely forget the official word "Complicit."
Happy Easter from your blissfully happy Blogger.


 

BLOGG # BEDS OF CROCUSES

Last year at this time I wrote about the time when I was walking my favourite walk to find spring flowers especially the crocuses on the mossy bank by the kindergarten adjacent to St.Mary's church. To my horror the school was gone, the mossy bank was gone and in it's place were huge construction machines taking massive bites out of the yard. The crocuses where gone except for one lone one. I mourned the loss of this lovely bed of crocuses.  A year has passed.  Yesterday I did the same walk. To my surprise I saw a mass of crocuses spreading over the construction site. They were scattered from the crumbled mossy wall to the new houses springing up.

  I had to paint them-these shimmering blossoms shivering in the cold wind- bravely defiantly spreading themselves over the whole area. What moxy!  Previously they just were confined to the mossy bank but not any more. Now they are luxuriantly stretching their wings-or rather roots covering the lot.
What a lesson for me I thought as I sketched. What a confirmation of positive survival in the face of catastrophe! What resilience and adaptability to an adverse action. These little insignificant blooms can be our teacher. They did not throw up their heels and die as expected. No- they survived and multiplied. What a smack in our eye.
Then I thought about myself in this past year. It too was difficult and changes were necessary and I sometimes felt despair. Also others I know felt the same in their individual lives but more importantly in the affairs of the troubled world also. This had been a difficult year.
We all feel despair at the upheaval of the planet. The uprooting of peoples from their homes and now homeless. The thoughtlessness of ongoing chaos. Will it ever stop- will we survive as good human beings?  Everyone everywhere has these thoughts now and it is easy to lose hope but I decided to take the crocus as example. I  have a  choice after all and instead of despairing I will look to the lowly crocus which always gave me joy especially in the drab spring of the prairies when I was a little girl and thought that spring would never come.
I decided I would use these crocuses which all my life have been the harbingers of joy and light to remind me that life is a privilege not just a right and I must not despair but like them fight to survive and grow in spite of misfortunes happening around us and be harbingers of light and joy too.
Yes this is a tall order but necessary if we want to survive as a species. Remember despair is an assault on the human spirit. Do not give it power.