This morning, whilst scrolling through my various notebooks, I came across a question I’d asked but had not answered: What are your 5 top values?

I know why I didn’t. I don’t know. I’m not sure I even know how to answer this question. Is the question asking what I like? what I prioritize? how I make decisions??

I’ve taken all the tests. I can tell you a lot about my personality and thought processes—I’m a Meyers-Briggs ENFP, a Strengths Finder Brainstormer & Philomath, my love languages are Quality Time and Acts of Service. My first career aspiration was archaeology, but I ended up an English professor with an inclination toward poetry. I am a Gemini sun, Virgo moon, Aquarius rising, an Enneagram 7w8, and a Human Design 5/2 Manifesting Generator. I believe in the miraculous power of God, metaphors, connections, walking, and yoga.

I like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain.

But in the business of me, I am not sure what I value. If I am a company trying to recruit and retain employees (body, mind, soul) who share my core values, what can I offer and how do I follow through on my core business of being me?

At PVD, INC., we issue poetic licenses to depart from convention, alter form, and (re)purpose language to write ourselves on the world.

On my website, I write things like:

• Find what you thought you’d lost/Or did not know you had. So, do I value discovery?

• A raw and crafted immediate archive of a backsliding poet. Do I reside in contradiction?

• You already know the words. Is that intuition?

• Giving sagacious women poetic license to rewrite themselves on the world. Are creativity and re-invention values?

• I connect you to the words that connect you to yourself. Words matter.

• I capture the everyday, every day. Everything is observation and nuance.

• I bring what’s hidden to light. That’s archaeology.

* * *

I dreamed last night that I was in a taxi on my way home from work. I looked down at the floor of the cab and saw a $100 bill, which picked up and gave to the driver. Then I noticed I’d left one of my bags behind—an important bag that contained things I valued. I was about to panic, but then I realized that, since this is my dream, I didn’t have to forget the bag. So I found it.

* * *

Had I a little more time, I might have opened the bag and seen something amazing. But I had somewhere to get to and drove calmly on.