“How strange to think of giving up all ambition!” – Robert Bly
A duffel bag lifetime of ambition,
because that was what I thought I should have.
Not just write, but be read.
Not just read science fiction,
but be scientist, astronaut.
Not just read National Geographic,
but dig up those mummies for myself.
A childhood of dreams,
around the nugget of
‘what do you want to be
when you grow up?’
Who I saw was my mother:
housewife at the sewing machine,
making dresses at all hours,
to supplement the nearly empty pay packet
my father brought home
from that mysterious place called ‘work’.
Until the question was asked,
I had no thought of doing
beyond being who I was,
experiencing each day as an ocean of lolloping waves,
to be swum through, drunk down,
buffeted by.
What did I want to be?
Who did I want to be?
Me.