Signature moves

Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it.Autograph your work with excellence. Jessica Guidobono

It snowed last night. Big time. Green feathered branches bend towards the ground, weighed under beneath the weight of their buds and snow. Tulips turn into themselves in an attempt to shield their spring-enthused flowers from frostbite. The pavement gave up the ghost of warmth that had shielded itself from collecting snow and green lawns have become laden fields of white flakes oozing moisture. It is a wet and heavy spring storm blasting down from the north.

I eye the snow with disdain. I eye the weather with consternation. Hello? It's the end of April. April showers bring May flowers and all that stuff? What's with the rain visible in a blanket of white?

Mother nature has signed her signature firmly on her work. She is one creative source of weather.

I sigh. She's just doing her job. I gotta get doing mine.

Jobs. We have so many. So many people fitting into places to work. To be. To create. To donate. To contribute. To give.

His job was once a tax-driver. "Twenty-five years," he told me at Project Forward the other night. "I seen everything. Perhaps the hardest, though, were the ladies. The one's with kids, fleeing their homes. You know, I tried everything to convince them not to go back. I had lists of resources they could call. Places they could go. And still, they went back. I didn't often see someone get away." He paused. Nodded his head. "It's good to see one get away."

He was speaking of the story one of the women in the group had shared about what had driven her to the shelter. "I had no where else to go," she said. "I was so scared but I knew I couldn't go back there. I had to stay here."

And here, at the shelter, she has been for a year. She's working now. Two jobs. And going to school. Finishing her high school diploma. "I'm moving out soon. You guys are helping me get an apartment. I know I can do this."

Do this. Do this thing called getting out. Moving on.

How she does it is up to her. Survive. Thrive.

Take your pick.

Like a job. How you do it is your signature.

We've all got one. Signature that is.

Mine is here, on the pages I write. Mine is there, at the shelter where I work. It's visible in how I live my purpose, everyday, bringing my best to bear in everything I do and say.

We've all got a signature. Let's make ours count. Let's make it different. Let's make its uniqueness be the spark that lights up the world with hope. With joy. With love.

She's getting out. And the man who used to drive a cab? He's hopeful. I gotta keep my spirits up, he says. I know I'm gonna get a job soon.

He shows me the ad from a job search site. I talked to the boss. He tells me it's looking good. I may be working soon.

He pauses. He's in his fifties. Addiction drove him here to the shelter. Courage drove him away from abusing himself into accepting his truth -- his addiction will keep him here unless he does something different.

I gave up drinking. Now, I gotta give myself a chance to move on.

He gave up drinking. Gave up using spirits to lift himself up.

Now, he's looking for a job. A way to put his signature on his life, on the world, that reflects what he wants to create, not what he's destroyed.

Mahatma Gandhi said, "I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction and therefore must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under that law would a well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living."

He's persisting. And in his persistence he is creating a life worth living.

The question is: What's your signature going to be today? How will you have signed the day when you crawl between the sheets tonight?