What is your vocation, your sense of callings as a human being at this point in your life, both in and beyond job and title?
Practice internalizing a more spacious, generous sense of what animates you and why you are here (e.g. as a human being, partner, child, neighbor, friend, citizen, maker, yogi, volunteer, as well as a professional). Honor the creative value of “how” you are present as much as in “what” you are doing in the everyday at work and in the world. #yourtruecalling
Today I’m in Oakland sitting across the room from my daughter who is working from home. She works to music, energetic music. While I usually write in quiet, I like working to a beat. Before beginning, we walked the few blocks for coffee. I drink mocha here, at home I’m a tea drinker. Across the bay in San Francisco, my son works in the financial district. According to Google maps their offices are .8 miles apart. Their homes are 25 miles apart, Oakland to San Anselmo. And my home base in Virginia, 2,937 miles away.
This morning there is a cool breeze and morning sun is reflecting on the building opposite from where I am sitting. Not unlike Paris, I find the light intoxicating, even with fog. I lived in California in the late 70’s and have been attempting to return since then. When my son first moved to San Francisco, he was the age I left. My daughter relocated here from Chicago to be near her brother and his family. It was our plan for me and my husband to join them in time. We keep waiting for the fog to lift, a path made visible.
Writing and reading have always been my devotion, spiritual practice. Poetry, my passion and true calling, advocation. I supported my family as a marriage and family therapist for 38 years. (Also, I just completed certification in iRest® Yoga Nidra Meditation, as part of my relocation and retirement plan). Almost 20 years ago, I had the amazing fortune to be accepted for an MFA at the Bennington Writing Seminars of Bennington College. This experience changed my life. Writing and reading, now affirmed, became more central. My association with Bennington as staff, has and continues to define my literary life and community.
And in May of 2017 at the age of 67, my first full length volume of poems, Hunger for Salt, will be published by Saint Julian Press. I am deeply honored that these poems found this particular home. I look forward to readings across the country and seeing if the book or writing manifests a move or at least more frequent visits.
Hence, Quest 2017. I’m sending out the call.