{"id":8732,"date":"2014-06-17T14:14:42","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T18:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=8732"},"modified":"2014-06-17T14:14:42","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T18:14:42","slug":"poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html","title":{"rendered":"poetry, and waiting for a new passport"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"via<\/a>
via Google<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I won’t need a passport for years. Unfortunately. Because finally, I’m thinking I can do what I’ve always wanted: list ‘poet’ as my occupation!<\/p>\n

Although I’ve been publishing poetry for years (and teaching it, as well), there’s always been a ‘real’ job that I felt honour-bound to list: teacher, journalist, academic. Come to think of it, I couldn’t list ‘journalist,’ either — we were going to countries where journalists are NOT welcome.<\/p>\n

But now? What I do, almost daily, is think about\/ write\/ talk about\/ read (sometimes about) poetry. I think it’s time! I can say I’m a poet! And yes, I have occasionally said that — but usually in jest, or just to rile folks. You would not believe<\/em> how oddly folks respond to poets.<\/p>\n

So: the beginner’s heart point to this men-in-hats digression (you don’t know that story? I’ll tell you sometime)…? It’s all about the change. Buddhism, life, passport entries — they all change. Dukkha<\/em>, remember? The impermanence of all but Buddha nature\/ Buddha mind. Not only do the things around us change, but so do we. Sometimes in huge ways, like going from ‘journalist’ to ‘wife’ (always safe, that one, at least in fundamentalist arenas) to ‘poet.’<\/p>\n

Of course, I could list ‘grandmother,’ another new career I’m crazy about. And yet I’ve done nothing to become an ecstatic grandmother — my wonderful son & DIL have provided me that avocation. Poetry? I’ve worked at it. It’s my practice.<\/p>\n

So right now, I’m basking in this ephemeral moment: the new chapbook, a workshop tomorrow, a couple more poems accepted, $50 coming, and the knowledge that this is all I want to list as a ‘job.’ No matter where I’m going. I’ve earned it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I won’t need a passport for years. Unfortunately. Because finally, I’m thinking I can do what I’ve always wanted: list ‘poet’ as my occupation! Although I’ve been publishing poetry for years (and teaching it, as well), there’s always been a ‘real’ job that I felt honour-bound to list: teacher, journalist, academic. Come to think of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353,458,826],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,1274,1289,1368],"class_list":["post-8732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-change","category-dukkha","category-impermanence","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-change","tag-dukkha","tag-impermanence"],"yoast_head":"\npoetry, and waiting for a new passport - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I won't need a passport for years. Unfortunately. Because finally, I'm thinking I can do what I've always wanted: list 'poet' as my occupation! Although\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"poetry, and waiting for a new passport - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I won't need a passport for years. Unfortunately. Because finally, I'm thinking I can do what I've always wanted: list 'poet' as my occupation! Although\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-17T18:14:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/06\/passport2-239x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"poetry, and waiting for a new passport - Beginner's Heart","description":"I won't need a passport for years. Unfortunately. Because finally, I'm thinking I can do what I've always wanted: list 'poet' as my occupation! Although","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"poetry, and waiting for a new passport - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"I won't need a passport for years. Unfortunately. Because finally, I'm thinking I can do what I've always wanted: list 'poet' as my occupation! Although","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2014-06-17T18:14:42+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/06\/passport2-239x300.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html","name":"poetry, and waiting for a new passport - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/06\/passport2-239x300.jpg","datePublished":"2014-06-17T18:14:42+00:00","dateModified":"2014-06-17T18:14:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"I won't need a passport for years. Unfortunately. Because finally, I'm thinking I can do what I've always wanted: list 'poet' as my occupation! Although","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/06\/passport2-239x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/06\/passport2-239x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/06\/poetry-and-waiting-for-a-new-passport.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"poetry, and waiting for a new passport"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8732"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8738,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8732\/revisions\/8738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}