
Why "Live Your Legacy?"
This is my story.
My Story
As an INFJ (as defined by the Meyers Briggs inventory) personality type and an Abstract Sequential thinker, selfie over exposure does not come naturally. In a creative nonfiction writing class I took while living in London, I was required to write “my story” in poem form. That style rang true to me.
Below is my authentic to me INJF/Concrete Sequential display of "my story" - encompassing where I come from, my engrained values, my vantage point and, most importantly, how I learned the essentialness of purpose and legacy (the foundation from where I coach) and the struggles witnessed when those have gone missing - in poem format. I hope it resonates.
Mutts, We Are
Mutts, we are.
A mix in unequal parts German, Irish, English, Scandinavian, Serbian and Croatian.
Our grandfathers worked the mines.
They cleared fertile lands and built humble churches.
They prayed “The Lord be with you and also with you.”
They prayed “Glory be to God.”
Our grandmothers tended to their litters of eight and ten.
They cooked hot dish and potato lefsa eaten greedily.
They claimed no pedigree, but they were loyal. They had purpose. They had pride.
They were bootstrappers.
We dove into amber lakes to cool in the dog days of summer.
We fished off docks for walleye, northern pike, perch and sunnies baited with leeches, minnows and nightcrawlers.
We lay on lawns of dandelion and crabgrass, basking in the sun.
We built snow forts and flooded backyards to make skating rinks when sub-zero winters set in.
We warmed our frozen fingers, our frozen toes at hearths of freshly cut timber.
We wore fur from animals captured in a hunt through our woods: raccoon, beaver, and rabbit.
And then.
And then we sat as the monotony of call centers replaced the sweat of the mines.
And then we rolled over as the big box discounters replaced mom and pop shops and the weekly shopper.
And then we stayed as store bought fashions advertised in glossy magazines replaced our mother’s handmade wears.
And then we fetched master’s degrees from cities further afield rather than attend the school of hard knocks.
And now.
And now we are rabid in small kennels.
Nowhere to roam, our habitat diminished.
And now we’ve grown tired, furled up on a sofa.
We have lost the scent of our adopted homeland’s trail.
We whimper, we growl, we moan.
We lick our wounds.
The iron in our land, in our blood, no longer significant.
Our voices muzzled.
And now we are digging up our roots buried so deep and carrying them elsewhere.
Our pack disbanded.
A dying, but ever trying, breed we are.
When you are ready to dive into your story in a way that is uniquely authentic to you, I would love to connect.
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