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home ~ WKWAB vol2 issue5 Prompt 34

Greetings Creatives,

Earlier this week I found a bird’s nest on a busy pathway.

This morning, a baseball diamond conjured memories of my dad coaching me when I was a kid.

Last night this poem popped up in my feed.

https://poets.org/poem/origin-story-1

What is home for you? A nest? A diamond? A memory?

If you are interested in attending the monthly meet-ups please drop a comment below and we can make arrangements for you to share your email with me.

The link for monthly digital meetups will be shared on the day of meeting. 

Meetups are on the 3rd Friday of each month at 8:00 PM.


Upcoming Meeting Dates and topics

May 21 - Secret stories. Private pieces in public.

June 18 - Light and Dark. Creating balance.

July 16 -  Loved and Lost. Pieces that broke, burned, or bothered you.

August 20 - Supporting people who don't support your Creative.

September 17 - Can I have more ham? Eff you it's called Prosciutto. And other misunderstandings.

October 15 - Ozymandias

November 19 - Baring bones. The structure of a Creative.

December 17 - Polymath
All past prompts are posted here. 

Post your work wherever you feel most safe and tag it with #wkwab.

Feel free to let other peeps know about our circle.

This circle is not just for words, feel free to explore any element of your creativity. Consider the 'Words' in #wkwab to be our ongoing conversation and fellowship in this space.

turn off teacher

Although teaching is my current stop along my career path, it will not be my last. And as amazing as this job is, it triggers behaviours that I am not entirely comfortable with. In truth, it has exacerbated some of the same characteristics that I had left behind in the kitchens of past.

10 years ago, teaching found me. Faced with a ‘whats my next move?’ moment I opted to shift out of restaurant life at a moment in time when the opportunity presented itself, and my motivation to change was accessible, and the resources to support the change were available. All of this couched in a singular notion- that if I truly wanted to grow my family, my current lifestyle would need to end.

In the professional kitchen, there is little time for ‘self’. The business pulls so many resources from its staff that I often felt the blackhole-pull teasing at my personal life. The down time from the kitchen often was dotted with frantic calls from either the owner or other staff members. The gravity was unavoidable. For a roadside view of my past autobahn self- check out http://goo.gl/T1eZHK or http://goo.gl/jGwEFI both articles present parts of my former career, in all its guts and glory.

So now, I discriminate.

In the past, this meant choosing work stuff over life stuff. Now, I find that at 3:00 pm I crave my family. I want to hustle out of the building, into my vehicle, and pick up my kids. This is new territory for me. But I gotta admit, it feels pretty good. There is a palpable upswing in my mood as I walk into my kids’ school- no matter the type of day they may have had and all of the possibilities that may have occurred, I feel one step closer to my center.

Coming home for downtime has taken on new meaning for me. I find that at the end of the work day I crave, well, ‘home’. In the past I would have/could have remained at work, puttered around organizing, copying, recopying, and possibly reorganizing stuff for the next day. Much of this busy work was/is fuelled by an internal autopilot mechanism that often misleads- more often than not, created anxious dissonance with my family’s needs, and did nothing to build connectivity to my work.

Going forward into 2016 I remain focused on getting and being ‘home’. A huge challenge in this will be developing a finer and clearer integration of work with life. Additionally, I aim to remain at home while there.