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I originally wrote this 11/12/14 The List, you know it. I wrote my first draft in middle school with my best friend at the time, Tresin...

Monday, June 27, 2011

To Be the Body Electric: The Breakroom

Hum and drum of office noises. Taps of fingers of impatient customers. Tones of co-workers irritated by the same offenses day after day after day. And where am I? Am I possibly caught up in the fast-pace, the race to place, to get promoted, applauded, praised or just finished? Am I counting down the minutes until the shift ends? Am I fidgeting, fighting the urge to walk away from mediocrity? 


No. 

No, I am grounded. Like metal rod struck by brilliant stroke, surged to the earth- charged, electric, grounded. I am here and more here than probably anyone else. I am not slave to the stressors for I am responsive and competent, but not sedated. 


2:13 pm. Three minutes left of break in the backroom with the fridge and the couch. Time enough for one more of those songs that lately seem to drive me into this familiar train of thought- a train that never seems to arrive at its destination. The twelve previous minutes of break have resulted in the scrap paper filled with scribbles of the longings of a soul to be free, of an inner beauty wanting to be seen.


2:14 pm. One more glance through the large windows: grey rainclouds. They don't speak of inner turmoil this time. See, the old weather could be boiled down to this: self-centered living. Yesterday's barometric reading amounted to a pitiful result: self-glorifying atmosphere.


Today's clouds hold potential for something better. This potential might just turn kinetic. Instead of rolling that boulder of ideals, of perfect virtues, up the hill, only to have it fall back, it is being loaded into a catapult. The mechanisms call for tension, suspension. That's what the last months have been- suspense. There is a slow pull, a steady pull. It will stretch me more, pull on me more, then, in one moment, I will be launched, with whatever I have clung to- all the rest left behind for good- into one unchanging direction, one future. Now is the time to set the aim. I have the chance to keep it centered on myself and the glory of my own name. But when I land, that will be the end. No, I will shift the aim to glorify another's name.


2:15 pm. Back to work. Serving the community. They think I'm counting down the minutes until I get out. They cannot hear the beat of my heart. "There's more," it drones, "there's more; there's more; there's more." Each pulse drives purpose through my shoes to the ground- there's more, there's so much more.