C is for the golden compass.
C is for courage.
C is for crown. C is for costumes.
And it’s good enough for me.
By which I mean:
“C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me.”
And also: that it is good. It is good enough. It is good enough for me. It is good enough and it is for me. It works for me.
These are the things that I see when I see C.
These are the things that I see when I see C.
C is also for the chocolate in my imaginary chocolate shop.
And C is for carousel. With a buttmonster riding a C!
C is for Congruence, and up until last week being a chocolatier felt like the most incongruent thing possible, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I think I might be wrong.
C is for course, of course. And for changing course.
So many gorgeous things that come with C.
Spy-words, for one thing….
Like Code. I have a blog and it is written in code! Cryptograph. Contact. Cooperation. Counter-intelligence! Cipher.
Mmmmm, I love this one so much…are you ready for this? Casting. In all sense of the word.
Casting like roles. Casting like iron. Casting like spells. Casting like throwing away and releasing. Let us cast things. Let us cast things off and cast things away.
Oh, and another thing I love. Conviviality, a marvelous word — and superpower — that I will forever associate with Max!
She brought it to Rally (Rally!) a couple years ago, and I can still picture the way she said it with a gigantic smile, as if the very existence of the word was filling her with delight.
C is colors, all the colors! Including cerulean and crimson. C is for coloring in monsters.
Calling in begins with C.
Let’s call in some of the qualities that start with C.
Creativity. Calling. Counsel. Cadence. Calm. Courage. Clasping. Collaboration. Companionship. Community. Conductivity. Connection. Compassion. Communication. Counter-point. Canopy. Competence. Confidence. Courtship. Court! Containers. Containment. Contentment. Cradling. Comfort. Continuity. Commitment. Closeness. Cohesion. Catalyst.
C is cycles and crossing. Coasts and coasting. Caring and being cared for. Celebrating and being celebrated. Charms and feeling charmed.
C is change. C is Choice. C is Clarity. C is being cheered up. And cheering, in general.
C is the superpower of COMPLETION: every thing gets to the point it needs to get to so that I can move on to the next piece.
And another kind of C.
Right now, for me, C is for option C. The Third Way. The thing that is not A-or-B.
So possibly C is for Compromise? Or maybe the third way is something better than compromise.
For me this not-A-and-not-B is about possibility.
The C is a new and delightful way that I haven’t been able to see. It is a seeing — that I can’t C, or maybe a C I can’t see. But it is there. It is the hidden pathway.
And since there may be infinity-pathways, let C stand for:
Any pathway that is both desirable and available to me, but as yet unseen by me.
I want to believe in C! This is my wish.
And I want my C to seem accessible, not far-away or tooth-fairy-like. Not some distant wished-for miracle. An actual viable possibility. Not a ship that might come in some day. Something that is here.
C means: I can step onto the new pathway once I know it exists. Or, I can at least make a path from where I am towards C.
But the most important thing about C is that it exists.
Just because I haven’t thought of it it yet or found it yet does not mean that it is not there. It is there, waiting for me to remember it.
It is on the tip of my tongue. It is just around the corner. It is incoming. It is the other door opening when one closes. There is a world of C that wants me to open my eyes and my heart to it.
It is my sea. My C and my see and my sea!
It is already happening, I think.
Last week was Rally B, the second of this year’s Alphabet Rallies and the 27th ever Rally, I think.
I spent a lot of time with words that start with B, and I was on a reality show that wasn’t real, and I resolved my existential crisis, which was awesome.
And one of the things I learned was that Forgiveness has a silent B. That is, it has a silent BE.
The week of B turned out to be the week of BE.
I am convinced that everything at this week’s Rally — Rally C — will have a silent SEE. And possibly a silent SEA. It will be the week of seeing things I have not seen before.
I can’t wait to find out what that is like.
May it be so! And come play with me.
We can say words that start with C. We can sing C IS FOR COOKIE.
(That’s good enough for me).
If you want to whisper words or sound effects that appeal to you, go for it. If you want to share in any of qualities, you can. They work like the salves in the Friday Chicken: just take some, there is always more.
If you want to throw some superpowers into the pot for Rally, that is welcome.
Waving from the Playground! Whispering loving spells that begin with C, for myself, and for anyone who wants…
Follow
C is also for “cooperation” and “co-creation”, which are alternatives to “compromise”.
(to the tune of “My Favorite Things”…)
Caroling children and catnaps in cashmere,
Cinnamon cookies and crisp, cream-filled crepes,
Curly-haired choristers in chapels clear,
These are a few of my favorite things!
I love the movement from the silent Be to the silent See ( and perhaps a Silent sea, we shall see).
And more Rally! Omg, a HALLOWEEN rally which has to be more awesome than is allowed by law.
So for the rallions:
crimson carnations and campanula, and calendula and cosmos and coreopsis. and cattails and climbing-roses and clematis and chamomile daisies. And chimichangas. because it’s lunch time.
This resonated with me very much. Like a bell. One of those bells in the bell buoys out in the sea that you can hear on quiet nights and warns ships of sandbars. One of those bell buoys that sometimes gets dislodged during storms and winds up on a beach somewhere or sometimes on the road until the men come and put it back out there where it belongs.
And one of my words for the year was Create.
There are so many marvelous Culinary C-words. Why, just this evening I cooked cauliflower with cheese! Then there’s cayenne, chipotle, curry, cassoulet, coffee and cocoa and chai, crisp and crunchy cold cereal, crackers and chips…
…and, of course, cookies. All of which is definitely good enough for me!
Reflecting on option C.
For a long time, a particular option A and option B tortured me because that is all I could see and both were horrible. I had staunchly believed in the nonexistence of an option C and not for a lack of effort to try to find one.
But now..I’m realizing that an option C is slooooowly beginning to unveil itself. Because my relationship to the things that made up options A and B is changing. I realize the thing I wanted, toward which I thought A and B were the only two paths, is maybe not what I want at all. Or the good parts of it are already here and I can access them in moments of being able to See. I can sneakily sidestep the sucky components of A and B because suddenly I have the grace of newly acquired superpowers, such as “hey! nothing is wrong” and “everything that is not now gets to leave” and “the sucky thing I thought I understood perfectly in all of its sucky components is actually a huge mystery, equal parts hardness and delight, that has so many things it wants to teach me, to help me work my way into my heart-center.
Mmmmmmmmmmmm.
These are so much fun. Here are some C’s to see into the pot:
Chime (in; or like a bell; or because I am a bell and chime is what bells do)
Cry (out in delight; or tears of joy; or just tears, because I am allowed to cry, dammit)
Contribute (whatever I can)
Configure (the code; or the master plan; or the arrangement of secret delightful things)
Customize (because I can and it is Comforting to make something that suits me just so)
Curious (how do you make that a verb – curiosize??)
Consort (with our collaborators)
Conspire (to embark on secret missions galore)
I, too, am a big fan of Option C, the not-A-or-B. Option C, as a general philosophy of Seeing, can be downright revolutionary. And I have found that sometimes, when I have trouble Seeing the C – the alternate path – it is because I am already on it. Or because it is vast and beautiful, and I was restricting myself to looking only for the small and ordinary…I had only to open my eyes wider and See. But it is so easy to forget. Thank you, Havi, for reminding me to See the C. I think this is a very powerful superpower.
Courage! I know you already said it, but Courage is my favourite C-word of the week. On Tuesday I was on a train on my way to a Big Thing and we passed a pub that said TAKE COURAGE in huge letters on the side. So I did, and it worked like whoa.
Cyclamen! My housemate brought home a whole load from his work the other day, and they are beautiful (though I like the wild ones best).
C is for Cal! Who lives in a caravan comparatively close to the coast, in a place that starts with C.
C is for our constant canine companion Charlie. He was the best dog and we miss him.
C is for a caterpillar climbing into a chrysalis!
C is for les chèvres! (French secret agent goats! We have two of them helping out on our property.) They are curious and charming, even when they complain, and they caper wildly at afternoon teatime every day. Nothing capers quite like a caprine.
*casts confetti*
C! It is also for Co-location.
Cake!
AND COFFEE. Which is an important part of the Alberta Experience. Coffee. Mmmm….
C is also for Can’t wait for my next Rally.
I can’t believe I forgot CONVENING.
Confiding. Corollary. Cusp. Calendar.
Capers. Circus. Calypso. Cookery. Cajole. Cajun music. C’est la vie.