Dear Tribe of Mat, Poem and Pen,
“Coffee, tea & poetry” is the phrase I use on my poetry syllabus to make time to talk collective housekeeping. And I can’t help but now notice how this phrase was perhaps inspired subconsciously by something new I was in the process of creating: I’ve recently begun to make my life sweeter by eating dessert first and baking myself happy as one of the newest additions to front of house staff at Flour Bakery & Cafe. While this is allowing me to tend to more of my own humanly needs for shelter, security, ritual, community, the sensuous (have you tasted their coffee?!?) and our shared collective ache for belonging, it’s also gifting me with a deeper sense of embodiment by way of joining an internationally multi-cultural community after an eternity of isolation living. There’s also a deep joy in recalibrating my beliefs around what it means to receive—I thought for so long sweet treats could only be enjoyed by everyone else around me--perhaps by way of living within New England's puritanical sub-consciousness, or because holidays became grief-laden way too early. Maybe it also had something to do with having an August birthday, always having to celebrate in elementary school on an arbitrary day in September with all the other summer babies.
I’ve catered in the past, and had a quick stint hostessing—I didn’t last long with the closed toe shoe mandate and reprimand for snacking on salad and bread when food was only allowed if you worked a double. I can’t help but celebrate the way this is one of the only jobs I’ve ever applied for where I left my email signature line “Yoga Teacher & Poetess” when I asked the hiring manager questions. The way I earn a meal for each shift worked, along with a pastry, and the joyous irony of being told I have to wear a headscarf after that time I sat with my mother in a Boston restaurant dressed in a floral blouse (bought when I worked at Wish boutique and managed all the other employees’ special order outfits), along with a white and paisley blue bandana on my head as my mother said she didn’t think the men in Boston would ever understand me. I remember how much that mattered that night—the need to find someone with whom I could partner in this 9-5 city. Only now, I’m recalibrating what it means to work in a bakery single at 40, to feel the longing over being told I can’t wear rings unless I’m married because they are bacteria-inducing, and to have the regret in taking my stacked silver and gold bands off be because they’re a symbol each morning that I’m re-marrying me.
Of course there was the wincing disappointment in me as I sat in that new-hire meeting over it being implied germs don’t inhabit wedding rings, as if they are eternally clean-flickering; within this company that champions diversity and inclusivity, there still does seem to exist the belief that wearing a wedding ring is a symbol to strangers of our compatibility, a suggestion that when we go home at night after collecting pastries, it's to a family. Is this part of a bakery’s identity? Needless to say, this new experience is not only one where I’m engaged in the yoga-induced practices of beginner’s mind—relearning the espresso machine— and svadhyaya (self-study), but also one inspiring new ways of inhabiting myself and the intra-covid world, while generating new poetry.
CREATING OUR WAY FORWARD:
WINTER 2022 EMBODIMENT & POETRY
One of the things pandemic-living is stirring in me, both inside and out of the bakery, is the way none of us can escape our embodiment work—no matter our race, gender identity, religious beliefs or relationship status—single, partnered or married. It’s present in our daily interactions with ourselves, one another, and unequivocally informs our poetry. In the name of somatic housekeeping as intrinsic to generating our most authentic creative work, I’m calibrating interest in an 8-12 week offering that combines workshopping poem drafts collectively, conversations about craft, and mind/body practices to help us ground, cleanse the somatic waters, and keep creating from our own unique visceral voice.
I’m picturing this to be a course where we meet for an hour and a half or so bi-weekly to talk creative process and craft remotely, engage with poem prompts, curated audio recordings and poem readings, and workshop each other’s poems via WetInk asynchronously.
In terms of the build-out and planning, a reasonable timeline for me seems to be Winter 2022. As much as I'm aching to see you all sooner and wanted to offer something this fall, I want to make sure I give the course and you the time and respect deserved to build the most inspiring and fully-formed experience possible.
Please email me here within the next two weeks to express interest in this offering, and provide any thoughts or feedback you have on this format. I heard from some folks earlier this summer about interest in a live & asynchronous combo course like this, and would love to know where this lands for you now as we move our way from August heat into fall’s cool-air reverie.
In Poems & Embodied Alchemy,
Lindsey
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