So far, So Fast

This post is dedicated to my Fastgirls, without whom I would not have felt the urgency to be authentic. You inspire, humble and amaze me with all that you bring to the world. Thank you.

Today marks the end of the 90 Day Be the Expert Challenge. As I type this I am overcome with emotion. This post represents the last 'required' post of the last set of tasks for the challenge. I missed the 9PM deadline, rendering me incomplete with the challenge. As usual, I procrastinated and I find myself writing this post to complete the challenge. I feel a mix of emotions but mostly a calm about not having completed the challenge but still having had my life transformed by this work--even in the face of enormous disappointment with myself. I was the only person out of 13 women left in the challenge to be incomplete at this last check in. What can I say about that? I was being authentic. (Insert ironic smiley here.)

The last 90 days have taught me a lot about what I value, how I prioritize my time and what I am willing to do to be true to myself. I fell into authenticity as an area of expertise and as a life practice, as a behavior because this is what the challenge has demanded. It demanded from the beginning that I be clear about my value and values, that I commit to taking action and spending time with my community of Fastgirls, and that I was consistent in each of these things.

Fastgirls helped me refine my passions and create my path forward at a time when things were a bit murky. Fastgirls surfaced the framework for my forthcoming leadership curriculum. In a year of great loss, gave me an expansive sense of self, which is invaluable in a way I never could have imagined. I came to Fastgirls looking for some idea about what would vaguely be next for me and what I leave this challenge with is near perfect clarity about what I am called to do.

When I was 11 years old, I participated in a life-changing leadership development program and the homework component was at times overwhelming. Some nights, at 11PM, when I'd had all I thought I could stand, my mother would offer me a glass of water, rub my back and tell me I could read another page, write another paragraph. From prep school to college, from college to grad school and at every job in between, my mother was there with a word of support and hand to hold.

Though my mother died almost 9 months ago to the day, I have no doubt in my mind that she has been with me these last 90 days, encouraging me to write every blog post, present in every letter of gratitude I've written to poets who've changed my life. She has seen me grow and change in this work, defining for myself a path that she always saw for me when she gave me journals, imploring me to write, or tell me to challenge myself, ensuring that I'd grow. For all that I have gained these last 90 days, I also dedicate this note to my mother, my very first Fastgirl.

And so it begins...

This week when I gave my talk, one of the audience members asked me what was next for me. This was a tough and scary question in that it forced me to declare my intentions. I mean, I have spent the last several weeks, likely months, talking to myself about what I'd need to do next. But here I was, giving a talk, answering questions about my subject matter when someone pierced through the topic to ask me about what all this authenticity stuff meant in my own life. I paused, chuckled nervously and responded, "Well, I have decided to pursue a life as a writer." There, I had said it. I publicly declared that I would abandon my work in education to take a vow of poverty, er, poetry.

What was most interesting about this declaration is that once I made it, the details of my plan came spilling out. I talked about the approach I'd take to making the transition, the tools and resources I'd need to take advantage of and the timing of it all. I was clear, I had committed and because I had made the commitment a public one through this talk's Q&A, I'd be held accountable and made to demonstrate my intentions with some consistency. Clarity, commitment, and consistency. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

Poem: Return to Sender

I am going to sit
in the middle of myself.
Points belabored
noisy neighbors
people point and stare - so what?

I am going to sit on the stoop of my life,
perch and watch the people pass
smirk and hear the people laugh.
Tip toe up the stairs
to stare into my own windows
while I fold my laundry there.

The problem with composure
is that it is oftentimes misleading
and denies the self the bleeding
and while placating
leaves pleading - the soul.
Hungry, starving, compulsive
feeling clasped in hands - composed.

I'd rather riff the rage and
scat the storm.
I'd rather beat the drum and strum
the heartstrings
plucking plucking
fucking nerve it takes
to improvise.

Improvisation is
composition is
improvement is
composure.

I am going to square my shoulders and
circle myself.
Take me in and
size me up.
Why not>
Join the pity party
feeling partly like myself
feeling sorry for myself hardly
hardly, am myself.

Pretend. Perform. Perfect composure.

Expect, explain, accept.
Compost-like
bullshit, like
full of it
like pull your own shit.

I am going to roll my eyes and
suck my teeth and
give you all kinds of sass and stank.

And I might stand arms akimbo
feet pigeon-toed
rolling neck, "I told you so"s
and wagging perfect, pink-tipped finger.

I will allow myself the anger
and the confusion
the madness of angry woman
once-loving, once loved
to seep out my pores
oozing you, oozing at you.
Making you squeamish
so you can see this.
Me standing
staring
staking out my own self
trying to assess what ever is valuable inside.

All because you
made me stand outside myself
and question my plans
for my own design.
You led me through rooms of myself -
rearranged to your liking
and being a mutable sign
and an adventurer, wanderer
seeker, sister, lover -
I let you.

I let you
you hurt me
you left me
you learned me
you stopped.

BUT I LET YOU

I loosened my grip
on what I didn't want and you
began to step away.
half-heartedly I
followed you,
chasing in the end because really -
who likes to lose?

Know this:

You may have left and you may be gone
but before you walked out,
they were playing my song.
I packed up your things
and I bid you adieu
and just so we're clear
dear, it's not me
it's you.

But more importantly
I am walking proudly up the steps
to my front door
jangling my keys -
one set for me.

I am walking through
foyers, looking at furniture
needing to be put back in place
boxes unpacked
clutter undone.
Dusty windows
and burnt out bulbs
long forgotten
in the dim light of love.
Low, low light.

I am steeping tea
and playing Nina
ironically grinning at no one in particular.
Humming to myself, barefoot
in these rooms
to these walks
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas.

I serenade myself
a song for me.
Song of myself
a welcome home ditty.

Ne me quitte pas.

And I promise me
that I won't sit outside myself
while someone rearranges me
ever again.

I will open the shutters
and pull up the shades.
I will use the china and
read the good Book.
I will feast to my own presence
smelling of jasmine
and glowing the color of honey.
I will embrace myself this day,
welcoming me home.

Putting it Out There

As part of this challenge, I needed to submit to a contest or apply for an award to demonstrate my expertise. I decided to submit for a contest of a literary journal, Crazyhorse, based on one of my gifts - poetry. After searching for a bit for a contest on authenticity, the only thing I could find was a contest which asked individuals to outline ways in which consumers of news could authenticate/validate the information they get via various news outlets. I decided to submit three poems which reflect my experience over the last several months. The poems follow in separate posts.

Be Impeccable With Your Word

As part of this 90 day challenge I am doing, I am tasked with living the mantra with which we begin and end each of our coaching calls. The full mantra, taken from Don Miguel Ruiz's seminal work, The Four Agreements, reads as follows --

Be impeccable with your word
Don't make assumptions
Don't take anything personally
Always do your best

In addition to living the mantra, we are tasked with writing several experts whose work/lives inspire us a handwritten letter of gratitude. I chose to write to some therapists, some coaches, but also to some extraordinary writers. In my chosen field, writing is core to the work I intend to do within the space of my expertise. It would follow that I'd select as inspirational guides and people after whom I'd like to model my own writing, writers and teachers like Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Kahlil Gibran, and Nikki Giovanni, people whose healing, enduring words have been translated to several languages, circulated around the globe and gifted to people repeatedly because of their sheer power.

I take so seriously the power of the written word, that I often suffer from paralysis when writing emails or when trying to craft a critical essay. In these letters of gratitude, however, the words came easily and quickly. Gratitude, genuine gratitude is one of the most natural things to express.

I took this approach when writing to Ms. Giovanni. I communicated how I am consistently moved by her poetry, how my mother was also a fan and how grateful I am that she had the audacity to share herself with us. Simple, to the point. Just like her reply - "Michelle, thank you for your kind words and for the memory of your mother. Nikki."