I am large. I contain multitudes. —Walt Whitman

There are scads of doors into who we are.

So why do we limit our identity to roles, jobs and addictions? Yes, I am a mom, wife, worker, sister, daughter, writer, sock-picker-upper, dinner-maker, runner, lyricist, singer, chocoholic, neat freak, chief creative officer and poet, but surely that cannot be all.

Carl Sandburg was a poet, politician, hobo, fireman, husband, soldier, father, cicil rights activist, Pulitzer Prize winner, editor, milk delivery man and brother.

BUT he gives us something way better. He gives us the stuff we didn’t even know we wanted. The stuff we aren’t even aware we crave.

Juxtaposition. Irony. Teeth.

He writes…

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar,

and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.

Which Carl would you rather have dinner with?

Okay, probably both. The Pulitzer-prize winning hobo sounds interesting. BUT the soaring-wallowing eagle-hippo– um, yah. How do you not want to meet him?

THAT guy is crazy, complex, witty, ironic, bold– an original without being pretentious, obtuse or aloof. Plus, I feel like we’ll be fast friends. I can completely relate. You want to soar and wallow? Me too. And you know what? I’d like to reintroduce myself.

There is a porcupine in me that wants to quill out, and a porpoise that wants to kiss the sky.

A tortoise that wants to chill, and a cheetah that wants to tear it up.

There is a white wall in me that wants to stay empty, and there is a hunger in me that longs to be full.

What about you?

Who else are you besides what you do, what you have? Beyond the polite pleasantries and civil societally approved designations.

Inside?

What does your barbaric YAWP sound like? Do you dare to sound it over the rooftops of the world?