Collateral Beauty*

Welcome to Poetry of Work.

(For some of you welcome back again:)

It has been such a long time since I last wrote in this blog space.

I am altered to the world and the world to me.

I remember my last normal day.

It was glorious.

And then,

with unbelievable speed:

it was a time outside of time:

a once upon a time:

a rare moment of

slowing down

altogether   

at one time.

Forces upon us:

grief and fear

beyond my wildest imaginings.

And now,

I feel the tides—

calling me back to “normal”

(too powerful to resist)

I feel the pull

all around me

to be done with this—

to “get back to normal”…

it is all much bigger than me……

(what I can do is remember)

This time,

there are a few things

I must

remember.

The collateral beauty*

of this time

(this covid time)

is to know

deep in my bones

and to remember

into forever:

I have come into contact,

engaged even,

with some realities

that have had

transformational effects on me:

—Every step we take in these (dis)united states—some call Turtle Island—every step we take is on stolen ground.

—Poetry is not a luxury. Audre Lourde explains the importance of  this reality  in a transformational piece of writing circa 1976. Here is the text of “Poetry is Not a Luxury.”

—I am a woman who reminds people about the magic and power of 3 simple life giving deep breaths. I had to completely embrace the fact that those 3 simple life giving deep breaths are not equally afforded to all. Some have them stolen away every day—it is baked into the system.

—These are hard facts to live in and with.

—Work reimagined us and it was good. It asked us to look deeper than a glance and see what is essential work—who works at those jobs and how we treat them. It turns out that those that have the least are subsidizing our cavernous consumptions, working for almost nothing—sometimes less than nothing—so that we can have cheap stuff.

—Work also asked, “Do you really need to be here a certain # of hours to get your real work done? What are the truly meaningful ways you must gather to be good at your work—and to be human together?

Why, how, when, where, and how often do you need to gather together to make meaningful progress on your work and become aware of satisfaction as it arises in the wholeness of your life?”

—“Normal” is a problematic concept.

*collateral beauty

as an idea

came to me from

a 2016 movie with the same name.

A character known only as death

says to a mother about to lose her 5 year old daughter

to a rare form of cancer,

“just make sure you notice the collateral beauty.”

In a world with so much

unnecessary and unaccounted for

collateral damage

I want to make it

a practice to notice

the collateral  beauty.

This time

as we

re-imagine work together

I need to re-member

these realities into forever.

Be well,

Thea