I was at the Fred Meyer in Warrenton, Oregon, gathering picnic supplies yesterday morning when I realized I’d left my phone at the hostel in Astoria. Did I really want to backtrack to get it? Surely I could live a day without it. But of course, it wasn’t really the phone I wanted. It was the GPS, so I could keep my bearings on an unfamiliar trail I planned to hike. It was the pedometer, so I could record my mileage. It was the camera, so I could capture some images of my day on the coast. It was the music I had downloaded to play on my drive. I went back and got the phone.

For the past several years, in lieu of resolutions and inspired by a practice shared by Tim Atkins, a fellow writer for the Braver/Wiser website, I’ve chosen a word of the year. For 2020, it was learn. In 2021, it was a wonder. This year, I’ve settled on present. As wonder did for me, I hope present will have many lessons I can learn within its myriad meanings as 2022 unfolds.

My main attraction to the word is for its adjective sense, its “be here now” meaning. I want to be present in my life much more than I sometimes seem to be. So even though I went back for my phone, and even though I consulted my trail map and took some pictures en route, I left the gizmo in my pack most of the time because I was on a trail where I really needed and wanted to be present. Mud, roots, and wind made the going tough, but the reward for my focus — a sweeping view at the edge of our continent — was more than worth the effort.

I want to be present for family and friends, to hear and see them and help them feel heard and seen. I want to live and love deeply. I want to continue to prize experiences and people over things.

I want to stay in the present and avoid thinking too much about the past or the future. I want to multitask less — and worry a lot less. I want to be present to the pain that is omnipresent in my neighborhood, my country, and the world without being consumed by it.

And I also want to pay attention to the verb form of present, to tune into opportunities and experiences that present themselves as gifts (or presents, if you like. Isn’t language great?). Of course, some experiences will present themselves as obstacles, unwanted and difficult, but I will learn from them, too.

I would love to know if you have chosen a word for 2022 — what it is and why. Meanwhile, here is a little video from my morning walk today. I’m grateful I was present for this. (I can’t embed it here via my iPad, though I will do so when I get home.) Or to share a Maya Angelou quote a friend reminded me of the other day, “This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before.”