Jumping In!
Why I'm going to write A LOT more in the month of June
Back in the first day of 2025, Rachel and I camped out at a coffee shop in Avondale for what has become a bit of a tradition. She grabbed a cup of hot tea and I a cup of hot coffee. We pulled out our journals and we began to write.
Rachel has several journals filled with evidence of this practice. Many years before we met, she began taking January 1 as an opportunity to recenter and look ahead. She would find somewhere cozy, grab that cup of hot tea, pull out pen and paper, and write down a thematic concept or image that would serve as a companion for the next twelve months. Not so much a New Year's Resolution, this word functioned more like a guide to point the way, a lens to clarify what's important, even a sparring partner to wrestle with.
I've tried this ritual with her on-and-off for the past few years, typically abandoning it only a few months into the year. But this year, something in my spirit nudged me to pay the practice a little more heed. I did not choose the word very deliberately. Nor did it feel like a revelation from on high laid before me. The word that landed on me did so much more quietly, almost as if by accident.
Intention.
I scribbled the word down and wrote for about an hour more. Here are some of the thoughts I recorded that morning as I began to toss the word around in my head:
It’s a word that I think I can afford a good bit of wrestling with. At this point to me, intention has something of an amorphous quality to me. It feels like a basic value, like the subfloor beneath the tile which undergirds the entire floor and provides it the strength and stability to function as it is intended. Other values I hold dear—like curiosity, love, kindness, and community—might be fortified through a commitment to intention. Intention provides needed clarity to my day and my life. How do I shop intentionally in a way that aligns with my values and is realistic? What does intentional rest look like? Intentional work? When I inevitably come up against some malaise or negative inertia in the pursuit of my goals, how do I intentionally show myself grace and find my way back on the path?
It's fun to look back at my own nascent process reflecting on this word: the guiding questions, the images that rose to the surface as I tried to scaffold the concept, the way my sleepy self wrote "to me" twice in the second sentence.
Right after writing the above paragraph, I scrawled a comically long list of ways I could practice intentionality in 2025. Entries on the list include:
Writing and publishing at least one essay each month.
Journaling regularly.
Cooking new recipes.
Slowing down to really taste things.
Flossing.
Praying.
Learning how to pray.
Learning what prayer is.
Resisting fascism.
Spontaneously buying flowers.
Calling an old friend.
I've had varying degrees of success with each item on the list. I continue to remind myself that a person is a process. And that it's good to come up with one hundred ideas, because even if I don't touch ninety-three of them, that means I still followed through on seven, and one of those seven is bound to be decent.
But I want to talk about an item I jotted down near the end of my list of ways I could be intentional in 2025:
The twelve-month challenge. Rooting each month of the challenge in a practice of intention.
What is the twelve-month challenge, you ask? It's another idea I resurrected from the dust-bin. I first conceived of the twelve-month challenge in 2023 and the idea was pretty simple: pick something to give up each month of the year. I wanted to tune into my desires that year and try to be more intentional with them. So I began that year with Dry January, abstaining from drinking alcohol for the first month. Then came what I dubbed "No Fizz February," where I would give up one of my biggest vices: sodas and energy drinks. And then...
Nothing.
The twelve-month challenge held strong for a solid two-months! I briefly picked it back up with Meatless May when I joined Rachel in going vegetarian for the whole month. But after that short reprise, the twelve-month challenge quickly and quietly laid itself to rest.
The idea began to percolate in my head again near the end of 2024. Particularly after the election, I felt a sense of dread and dismay, and knew that I had to put my energy toward something purposeful and grounding as the unknown of the year ahead approached.
But it wasn't until I connected the idea of the twelve-month challenge with that three-syllable anchor—intention—that it clicked for me. Simply "giving something up" each month was too narrow and it missed the point of what I wanted out of the challenge. It was not chiefly a form of abstinence or temperance that I was seeking. It was a curiosity that led me to ask: what if I ran an experiment each month, one where I was the researcher and the rat, where my own life could serve as a miniature laboratory of intention?
And so it began!
I started off in familiar territory, participating in my third consecutive Dry January. Rachel and I discovered a ton of interesting non-alcoholic drinks throughout the month, enjoying the ritual of sharing these drinks together, savoring each sip.
I reprised No-Fizz February and simultaneously introduced No-Fast-Food February into the equation.1 This was exceedingly difficult for me in the first few days, but I quickly acclimated.
Then March came, and so too did my first additive challenge. Rather than giving something up, I introduced something new into each day: a unique mindful practice. Color walks, centering prayer, guided meditations, box breathing, even just closing my eyes for a minute of silence. I intentionally kept the definition of a "meditative practice" loose and followed my curiosity where it led me. And so came and went Mindful March.
Authorial April arrived next, and with it a commitment to pen a letter to a friend for the next thirty days. More experienced readers may scoff at this being a "challenge," but understand that for us Zillenials, snail mail is a lost art. I wrote the first letter and quickly realized I had no stamps in my home. After short trip to the post office to remedy the situation, I came to deeply enjoy the rhythm of writing a few words on a postcard, sending it out into the world, and receiving a text of that postcard stuck onto a friend's fridge a few weeks later.2
Next, Meatless May made its triumphant return. It was extraordinarily fun experimenting with new recipes and discovering new ingredients to bring into the kitchen. Highlights included an eggplant scallopini sandwich for Mother's Day and a strawberry rhubarb crumble baked in a campfire.
Soon enough, I'll write in greater detail about these "tiny experiments" and why they work so well for me (hint: read this book for a start). But the purpose of this piece is actually to introduce the sixth chapter of my twelve-month challenge. I initially thought I might do a jumprope workout challenge for June, and I'd call it "Jumpin' June!" But as I've thought more and more about my desire to take my writing seriously, I decided to take the name, add a little hyphen between the first and second syllables, and choose a completely different challenge.
And thus begins Jump-In June!
The commitment I'm making to myself is simple, but I don't think it'll be easy. And by nature, it's a very public one: for the duration of this month, I'll aim to write and publish here three times each week. I'm not constraining myself to a word count or a specific topic. But what I know is that if I want to be a writer, the best way to do it is to write, to show my work, and to do so regularly.
My aim is not to compare my output or the quality of my work to other writers I love. I’m focusing on doing the practice for myself, on the attitude and consistency I bring into this challenge, not on the output itself. In a sense, I think a lot of good could come out of regularly hitting “publish” on the pieces I'm only 70% happy with. Because I keep having to learn over and over that if I wait until I feel 100% ready/qualified/deserving/good-enough to do the thing I care deeply about, I will simply never do it. And the only way to grow is by simply doing it. I only ever have this imperfect moment right now to seize, and Jump-In June is my commitment to seizing that moment and sharing it with y'all.
So if you don't dig my words or what I'm thinking about (and no sweat if that's the case), now is probably the time to unsubscribe. Because if all goes well on my end, I'll be popping into your inbox a whole lot more this month!
And if you do dig my words, I'm excited you're coming along with me on this little month-long journey.
May the day ahead of you be one filled with intention and attention toward the things that bring you life and joy. And may we all remember to floss tonight.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
-Teilhard de Chardin
If you liked what you read here, give my previous essay a read. And if you’re up to read more of my words, you can find me on various other socials (for now) @lladnar42 and sign up for my email list by clicking the “Subscribe now” button below.
Lastly, if you’d like to contribute something to this conversation—a thought, a question, a piece of pushback—I’d welcome that. Go ahead and share something in the comments below!
As you’ll see, low-brow wordplay or alliterative name is a necessity for each challenge.
Is the mail moving slowly for anybody else these days? Just me?
Love reading your thought provoking words. Look forward to seeing more this month.