Have I mentioned I've committed to grad school again? You heard right. Again. Round 1 was over ten years ago at the University of Utah. I completed 100% of the program credits with a 3.441 GPA - degree not conferred - for a master's degree in archaeology. At the time, enrolling for archaeology seemed like the logical choice and, thanks to my sister's sagacious words, I've never regretted the experience and knowledge gained. In fact, I use much of the writing and statistics skills that I earned in that program in my continuous improvement work. In hindsight, I think a career in business would have made more sense for me. Growing up on the dairy farm showed me so much about the benefits and challenges of being an entrepreneur and making smart organizational decisions that I took the ease with which I grasp those concepts for granted.
Not anymore. I am officially enrolled to start earning credits towards my MBA with classes beginning on January 11th! It's exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. It's got me swirling in a funnel of emotion so that's what today's poem captures for me. Enjoy!
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I've been really inspired lately by the incredibly uplifting response to the challenging world events I've been seeing on social media. People I follow have been posting helpful post that offer tangible steps people can take to increase the love, hope, and goodness that composes the global connected experience. Those messages got me thinking about symbols of hope and peace that humanity has rallied around in the past and I always think about the dove. It's one of my favorite symbols especially this time of year and many of my holiday decorations feature a dove (also because I love birds, in general).
So my poem tonight is of the dove and hopefully inspires some of us to holding peace in our hearts where hate or anger might come easier. I hope you like it, and even if you don't, I love you. You had two options for poems tonight. One was me definitely giving into the negative side of the force in reaction to every trending hashtag on twitter today. The other is a simple nature poem that can be interpreted as you will. In an effort to spread love, not hate, I'm posting the nature poem.
As I was about to fall to sleep last night, I had this vivid "lucid dream" as my friend, Meg, mentioned such dreams might be called, where I dreamt I was soon to die. I went through a myriad of emotion and ultimately settled on an "awshucks" reaction. Once I landed there, I was able to drift on into sleep. In the morning, I was thinking about poems about death. In 2018, my last poetry go-round, I hesitated to write many poems about deep, difficult, or sad type of poems. This year, I'm resolved to not shy away from real and difficult topics, even if they may be a downer. My intention is to be anchored in the human experience and avoid fluffing up the sharp bits. And with that intention, I give you the second poem of 2020: "Death Sits Behind My Eyelids".
Last night, while idly watching my spouse youtube channel surf all the live views of the New York Times square, I was flipping through the "sample" pages of all the books that remain in my library "wishlist" queue, sighing. I was sighing about my decision. Sighing about my commitment to not reading books for pleasure in 2020.
Now, to be clear, there is nobody holding a knife to my throat. No one is going to condemn me for picking up a book for pleasure when the semester gets hard, or I get a cold and want to stay in bed reading. There is no one whose judgement is going to affect my sleeping if I happen to give in to the twinge, when I get the twinge, except my own. And for that, I was sighing. I am a certified facilitator for Franklin Covey's "Foundations of the Speed of Trust" and one of the things they talk about is how integrity, doing what you say you'll do, starts with yourself. So if I want to trust myself, then I have to make commitments and keep them. For myself. A few years back, I read The Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg and was impressed with the information on what is really happening in our brains as our basal ganglia keeps us safe with the patterns are created in our brains. And I'm not trying to play it safe in 2020. So thinking about the recommendations from Duhigg, I'm going to attempt to pay attention to the physical cues that trigger my reading. For instance, I know that reading on the bus after a long day at work then eating supper and immediately sitting back down on the couch often results in an evening spent only on the couch. The bottom-black-hole syndrome is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. My vision for myself after I've gone one year without reading is one where I've been engaged and interested in what my spouse is doing, where I'm creating instead of consuming, where I'm active instead of lethargic, and ambitious rather than stagnant. The pieces of me that I'm trying to leave behind with my commitment to abstain from reading for pleasure in 2020 are the pieces that are "ok" with the status quo, the pieces that ignore my spouse in favor of a ripping good tale, the pieces that let the inertia of sitting on the couch keep me at rest for far longer than is healthy or needed. Rolf Gates, in his book Meditations from the Mat, talks about the importance of "renouncing" that which doesn't serve your highest self as a part of your practice of "yoga". So to "yoke", to unite and engage in the universe of experience going on around me, I am renouncing reading books for pleasure in 2020. Today's poem is me trying to capture a little of the trepidation and resolve toward my commitment. |
AuthorCreative enthusiast, gregarious naturalist, opinionated humanist, MBA, RYT 200. Amy Kay Czechowicz completed a poetry challenge for 2018, 2020, and half of 2023 by posting an original poem daily to this blog. She teaches yin and vinyasa weekly at Green Lotus Yoga in Lakeville, Minnesota and chimes in here from time to time with musings and rhymes. Archives
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