Weeknotes #32: Loosened Grip
You are reading ‘Like person, like coach’: explorations at the intersection of personal narrative and coaching practice:
'the world was already [young | sick | lost] when we came to it
we were busy looking [for | at | through] god
went to the dance and brought our new [shoes | dad | flask]
borrowed a [shirt | religion | mask] & sat in the bleachers
[music | trash | oil] filled our rivers
stayed up for the after [party | life | math]
the forests were [protected | sold | ash]
wrote [letters | checks | ads] against corruption
blamed [science | systems | depression] for our cities
when the [ocean | fires | draughts] came
when the [rains | bomb | flu] came
when the [weather | weather | weather] came
we [weathered | welcomed | watered] it
we were [prepared | shocked | responsible]
please for one line look nowhere else
who made our [life | language | living] here
whoever eats [rivers | ash | lambs] will return
each time we turn our mouths to [sob | scream | song]
children are blameless as they become [gone | ghosts | gods]’
- by Sam Sax
I wanted to share this poem because sometime a week ago it blew my mind. I found in it an expression of what it feels like to be alive, especially right now. Our minds constantly trying to make sense of multiple meanings, realities, choices. It made me think about the relativity of time, how sometimes past, present and future meld into one. And what possibilities that way of relating to time might bring us. Very much on topic, I wrote this poem at the start of the year:
‘How is it that
We think
We know
How things will go
Or how they should.
Or that by now
I should have
Or how come they
Have already
How is it that
We draw a line across the years
Instead of a circle?’
Alongside time, the last few weeks I’ve thought a lot about letting go of control and letting things be what they are. Often I push for action but my body knows better. I’m learning to stop and listen more. Often times, achievement is completely the opposite of action, control, set outcomes. There’s a letting go of fixed ideas about what needs to transpire. When I look back to how I got where I am now, with the coaching work I am doing right now, I see: putting time into relationships, applying for things you’re scared of, joining groups and projects that bring you alight.
Today is Leap Year day. I think a lot about all the places in my life where I am playing small. To be gentle, I let myself keep some of these as they are. But to believe in myself, I push at the edge of some that are draining me. The way I could work with more freedom, giving of freedom to others and myself to be exactly where we are. And then, taking a moment to see it, this miraculous chance of being and working together at the same time as we’re both drawing circles through time.
This way of living out a work life is making me even more curious about what it might be like to love with commitment and grace:
‘Open me
You will find a dense wood,
children wandering inside it.
Not lost children. They know the way.
They live the way horses run.
If they each had a bird in hand
they would open their hands.’
- Todd Dillard
This week, I am reading and pondering:
1. Does my anti-racism solidarity make me lose sleep at night? - Nicky Flash, via Scaffolded Anti-Racist Resources
2. ‘It is easy to state that all races are equal; it is more difficult to ferret out the manifestations of racism that prevent the actualisation of this ideal.’
- Sharon Welch, Communities of Resistance and Solidarity
3. ‘Measure it. The space between
What one white body sees and what will be
True about what it sees is briefer than
The space between the waves that hang a word
On air and the thin air on which it hangs
Measure it. Take the measure of it hanging.
- Shane McCrae, in The Friday Poem
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If you enjoy reading Like Person, Like Coach recommend it to others. Get in touch at iacobrbacian@gmail.com or find me elsewhere online.