Year in Review: 2015 Word of the Year Ease; 2016 Daily

In 2015, my word of the year was EASE. It was anything but easeful. In November 2014, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He died in June 2015. I lost two companion animals this year as well.

If not for the Sensorium, my remembered word for this year may have been loss.

Looking back though, I see, thanks to the senses I recorded, that there was much bounty enjoyed in 2015 as well.

I'm reminded of the resurrected corpses in Susan Palwick's story "Beautiful Stuff," (in the outstanding collection The Fate of Mice) who lock on to simple wonderful objects — butterflies, bandanas, paperweights — and love them for all they are worth for as long as they have left to live.

"Dying hurts," said Ari. "It won't make your happy. It won't make anybody happy."
"So please do the right thing," said Rusty. "Don't kill anybody else."

"Look at this! Look at the shiny glass. Look at the flower. It's beautiful. You have all this stuff in your life, all this beautiful stuff. Sunshine and grass and butterflies. Barrettes. Bandanas. You don't have that when you're dead. That's why dying hurts."

— Susan Palwick, "Beautiful Stuff," The Fate of Mice

I'm grateful for this record, otherwise my memories of the year would be more limited and less fond. As I do each December, I'm now going through and creating my "best of" list of senses which I'll be posting each day from now until the New Year. You will see Palwick's name again when I get to the final entry on books, authors and stories. While it seems funny picking favorites, it's a nice excuse to savor the senses that made this year memorable.

In 2016, my word of the year will be DAILY as I will be putting daily installments of my novel project Space Explorer 365 on the blog beginning March 20, 2016. This will be the culmination of a two-year writing project and a challenge to actually post every day. We'll see how it goes.

2015 Year in Review

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Shel Graves' Sensorium

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