I’d been here in London just a couple of weeks, working housekeeping and hospitality here at the Center, doing apparently nothing important and feeling pretty darned good about the whole scene. So I went to the house manager here and said I could stay on longer, if that was possible or needed. She said she wasn’t sure about rules and schedules and such, to which I heard myself saying, “That’s okay. I’m here. Use me if you can.”
I’ve been playing that line back every so often over the last few days, after hearing that they do indeed want me to stay on, switching roles to be the “Kitchen Yogi,” aka Cook’s Assistant. That’s all well and good. I’m looking forward to it. But I’m also wondering about other kinds of roles and organizations to which I’d be willing to make the same offer. “That’s okay. Do what you need to. I’m here. Use me if you can.” Feels like the edge of practice meeting practice.
At the same time, it feels an awful lot like what I’ve done with my facilitating work, corporate or community, in OpenSpaceTech. Opening space, holding a space, clearing the space, paying attention to the space… in which other people can do what they see that they need to do. In this way, I’ve not come so very far from home at all. More like gone closer to it.