By Peter Godfrey. Moonee Ponds, VIC
That you are here —
that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on,
and you may contribute a verse.Walt Whitman
Dear Naomi — O Captain! My Captain,
I am writing a ‘thank you’ series. It’s a small collection of letters with a memoir touch and tone to each of them. Personal letters to a select few outstanding humans that had a profound impact on me somewhere along my earlier path. The path that has led to my current writerly life.
The personal letter form and format enables me to include memory fragments. Fragments that are symbolic of much longer stanzas of time, and of greater and more meaningful events and happenings.
As you’d expect from me, no doubt, the form also enables me to weave poetry and lyrics in, too. Witness our mutual friend Walt Whitman in the opening lines above.
With that scene set, how could I not include you in the series? You impacted me ‘creatively’ perhaps more than either of us appreciated during our time together.
Us reconnecting recently — me in Melbourne, you in London — over your imminent career and life shift, and possible return to Australia, took my mind back to our time working together, and to the ‘farewell note’ I penned to you back then. Such fond memories of challenging, uncertain, yet rewarding times. I think we were really trying to change the world — or at the very least, our world.
It’s cliché, I know, but it all feels like yesterday. It’s hard to fathom that I wrote that note to you in January 2018.
To reprise that note here, in part, is apt.
‘A great leader’s light does not die when it fades,
for it lives on in the hearts it has ignited.’
I couldn’t cite the source of that quote in 2018 and I still can’t. I love it, though, and it’s fitting — so fitting — when I think about you. You had a way, a very unique way, of engaging and taking people (me included) with you.
To the farewell note of 2018…
How do I do justice to 4 and a half years on a page and a bit? Where to start? Perhaps here — Thank you!
Thank you for your respect, your trust, your support, your encouragement, your belief, and your sage advice. Thank you for your guidance too — on how to get things done here.
Thank you for the freedom to push the agenda, to pursue ideas, to test, and to challenge. Thank you for ‘clearing the decks’, Captain — to enable the visions and visionaries to shine through.
Thank you for your care, your positivity, and your passion.
Thank you for being exactly ‘the boss’ I needed to work with these past few years at my stage of life and career.
Thank you also for being vulnerable enough and humble enough, Captain, to reach out and allow me to prop you up, pep you up, dust you off, and send you back out into the battle, because the mission was right. If the work was easy, someone else would be doing it — right?
I will be eternally glad that I was one who you felt able, and comfortable, and safe enough, to turn to when all was a little dull and dark.
Loads of memories derived from so many meaningful and serendipitous conversations.
O Captain, My Captain — I can’t watch Dead Poets Society without thinking about you.
No matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
I have said it to you a few times along the ride, and of late more recently knowing that you are leaving, my life is better for knowing you.
Travel well and safely my friend.
I will miss you.
As a parting gift, and as a small reminder of yours truly, I bought you a fresh copy of Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull back then, too. I’m wondering now whether you read it.
Yes — the famous fable about a seagull.
What’s not to love about a fable? I think organisational life would be far simpler and easier to navigate — and more meaningful, too — if we paid more attention to the lessons derived from fables.
‘Seagull’ — the tale of inspiration and empowerment — overcoming limitations, striving for personal growth, embracing individuality, and achieving dreams.
I was fifty-something when we first met, Captain. I am sixty-something now. I was curious about the world, and particularly the world of work and organisations, back then. I still am. I still want to grow. I still dream.
You unlocked me. Perhaps ‘unshackled me’ is more appropriate.
You saw through and beyond my technical expertise.
You pierced the ‘corporate’ veneer.
You embraced me as me. You saw me for me.
You wanted others to know me as you knew me.
You inspired and enabled my creativity.
When next I see you I’ll have two books for you. They have my name on the front cover.
I don’t mind being bone and feathers.
I just want to know
what I can do in the air
and what I can’t.
That’s all, I just want to know.Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull
I still miss you.
Thank you.
Featured image: Walt Whitman
