Borrowing others’ words during difficult times

A bonus post for everyone this week

This morning I awoke to the news of the presidential election. My husband had to say it three times before it registered. A cold stone fell into my stomach, but even so, I was, sadly, not surprised.

Tomorrow is my son’s second birthday. My mom came over to play with him while I baked three layers of confetti cake from scratch for his birthday cake. I plan to top it with crumbled Oreos and mini monster truck toys. While outfitting my pans with parchment paper, I found myself swirling and spinning with anxiety, not only about the election, but other, personal worries that I don’t need to get into here. The fact is that I tend to do this: when I get anxious or angry, I loop. I fall into the same mental patterns of wordless worry that boil over into rage.

And so, I turn to words. Not mine, but those of others. The writer Jami Attenberg wrote a post where she featured her friends’ favorite sentences. It was a balm to read, and in inspiration, I offer to you some of the poems and words that I revisit when worry or sadness or rage overtakes me. There is something about a poem or a short phrase that can shake me out of my loop, even briefly. It reminds me to get out of my head and rejoin the world, where others’ words wait for me if only I will listen.

You could read this all at once, or you could bookmark this post and revisit it here or there when you need a poem. I think poems are best when savored. There is no need to rush. Take a breath. Take a poem. Feel what you need to feel, then let it go.

Image: Woman Reading by Henri Matisse

First, what I think may be my favorite poem:

Thank You by Ross Gay

If you find yourself half naked

and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,

again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says

you are the air of the now and gone, that says

all you love will turn to dust,

and will meet you there, do not

raise your fist. Do not raise

your small voice against it. And do not

take cover. Instead, curl your toes

into the grass, watch the cloud

ascending from your lips. Walk

through the garden's dormant splendor.

Say only, thank you.

Thank you.

---

And this, a quote said by Richard Jenkins in Eat, Pray, Love (wonderful movie, horrible book, imo) to Julia Roberts’s character when she is hung up on an ex. Instead of the “guy,” insert anything it is that you’re obsessing over.

From Eat, Pray, Love the movie

If you could clear out all that space in your mind that you're using to obsess over this guy, you'd have a vacuum with a doorway. You know what the universe would do with that doorway? Rush in. God, rush in and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed of. I think you have the capacity someday to love the whole world.

I am working hard each day to let go of negative thoughts. To focus on what it is I can do in this present moment before me. To seek joy and let it find me. To let the universe rush into the space I make in my mind and heart with love, love, love.

---

This poem has become increasingly meaningful to me since I had my son. It is one that is harrowing and hopeful, cynical and searing. The stakes are high, so many odds are stacked against us, but still, we must find a way to make our corner of the world as peaceful/joyous/content/beautiful as we can.

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

---

This was the first poem I heard clanging around in my mind when I woke up this morning. A reminder that life goes on, a reminder that life goes on for those with privilege:

We Lived Happily During the War by Ilya Kaminsky

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)

lived happily during the war.

---

And finally, one last poem that I read often. The word “plodding” always knocks its way into my heart, which in turn shakes loose so much stuff from my brain. I’ve read this poem over in a number of scenarios and it always brings me comfort and a quiet resolution, a steadfastness, an assurance.

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

---

Tomorrow is my son’s second birthday. I refuse to forsake joy. I move forward with gratitude, an eye toward the positive change I can make in my community, and the solidarity of others’ words, shaking loose the anxiety loop, clanging persistently in my mind like so many cheering bells.

If you have words of solace, hope, or joy that you return to in times of worry or heartache, I’d love to hear them. Please comment and share them with us.

With love from my kitchen table,

Kaia