What if you're not broken-you're transforming?
Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar doesn't gradually grow wings-it dissolves completely into an undifferentiated cellular soup. Only after complete liquefaction occurs can reorganization occur. Only after the old structure has entirely broken down can the new structure form.
Welcome to the goo stage.
THIS FEELING IS SPREADING
The career that once defined you now feels like a performance
Retirement brought formlessness instead of freedom
Your expertise is being automated
Decades-old goals suddenly seem arbitrary
You go through the motions, but some essential engine has cut out
The standard response: see a therapist, get back on track. But what if there is no track anymore? What if this loss of interest isn't personal failure but a signal that something fundamental has changed?
POETRY FROM INSIDE THE TRANSFORMATION
The Goo Stage captures the messy middle of transformation-when you're neither caterpillar nor butterfly. Through poems, haiku, and haibun (a Japanese form that pairs prose with compressed imagery), this collection explores dissolution without rushing to resolution.
Written in the conversational tradition of Billy Collins and Mary Oliver, these poems require no expertise. The language is clear, grounded in concrete observation, yet it engages seriously with Stoicism, Buddhism, and contemplative traditions.
WHAT THIS BOOK WON'T DO
This is not self-help. There are no action steps, journaling prompts, or promises of transformation in 30 days. This is a book written from inside the goo. It doesn't claim to have emerged with wisdom to share.
It offers something more valuable: companionship in uncertainty, validation that dissolution might be necessary rather than failure, and permission to inhabit the not-knowing rather than rushing past it.
HONEST ABOUT DIFFICULTY
These poems don't flinch. "Inheritance: Four Days in October" examines eldercare and mortality directly. "The Arithmetic of Alone" explores isolation without sugarcoating it. The economic poems acknowledge that the math no longer works.
If you need comfort now, this may not be the right book. But if you need validation that dissolution is real and shared-that sitting in the goo might be the bravest thing you can do-these poems will find you.
IDEAL FOR READERS WHO:
✓ Are approaching, in, or recently through retirement ✓ Have experienced career disruption or sense the game has changed ✓ Are experiencing dissolution of old identities without clear new ones forming ✓ Are drawn to Stoic philosophy, Buddhist psychology, or contemplative traditions ✓ Want poetry that's accessible without being simplistic ✓ Appreciate honest exploration over false resolution
FROM THE AUTHOR
"I'm still in it. Still in the goo. These poems aren't written from the wisdom of arrival but from the honesty of being in the middle of the process. We're in a liminal moment-personally and collectively. The old structures are dissolving. New ones haven't formed. May we be patient with our own becoming." - D.L. Baratta
You're not broken. You're not alone. You're transforming.
