on slowing the fuck down with poetry
yes, we can have nice things // 01
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Hi friends,
There are so many places I could start this newsletter! I could start with the fact that for me, 2022 ended not with a bang, but with a whimper—sick and curled up in bed on New Year’s Eve1. Hope yours fared better.
Or I could start with the fact that the storms across Northern California have been immense and intense. Yesterday alone, downtown San Francisco was hit with an emergency flash flooding alert, hail, and thunderstorm. Lightning, even! If you’re not in California, please remember that first, most of us have zero clue what to do in the event of Actual Weather. Then there’s the fact that these storms are the real deal, and undoubtedly conditions have been worsened by climate change. I am absolutely feeling for everyone they are seriously impacting.
Or I could lead with the fact that in times of uncertainty and tumult, it’s always poetry—poetry and music—that I find myself turning to.
Yes, that feels right.
With that in mind, the first nice thing we can have—as a part of this new, twice-monthly series, of course—is a lovely little reminder from poetry. More specifically, it arose while I was listening to an episode of Ezra Klein’s Show where he spoke with Ada Limón, who was named the first-ever Latina Poet Laureate in July of last year. (How appropriate that she was named Poet Laureate during Cancer season! That Cancerian full moon hangover from last weekend was so very real.)
I’m not as familiar with Ada’s body of work as I’d like to be, but I am of the belief that certain things—messages, imagery, animals, and more—make their way into our lives both when we need them, and often when they’ll resonate most.
As long as we are open to them, ready for the signs they have to share with us.
Holding space for the profound reminders that poetry can gift us with
As Ada refers to in their conversation, part of the beauty—and necessity—in poetry is in the line breaks: essentially, the places the poem tells you to stop and breathe.
She references the Mary Oliver quote2,
“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
—from Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches, by Mary Oliver
I often have a visceral reaction to being told to breathe. In yoga classes, I struggle at times, both at remembering not to hold it, and with holding it for what is deemed “long enough.” It’s taken training to feel as though I can take in a large enough lungful to keep pace with the ubiquitous “Om!” On the phone, I talk too fast, I’m often left breathless. And I’m no stranger to panic attacks, though it has happily been some time since I’ve experienced one first hand.
Over the weekend, I shared a rainy day museum date with two girlfriends. Over the course of our evening, I admitted to feeling alienated by my choice to step away from Instagram for the time being. Despite that, I feel that not being on social media is—quite literally—a breath of fresh air.
At work there are notices plastered all over the office, one-pagers brimming with descriptions of company-wide initiatives, random facts, and reminders. One such notice describes the collective tendency to hold our breath while checking email. (I hope you’re not doing it right now, but if you are, please consider this your reminder to take a juicy, satisfying inhale and exhale!) I also caught myself forgetting my own every single time I scrolled Instagram.
So though I may miss being regularly looped in on what my friends are doing, I have no plans to get back on it anytime soon. And I’m finding that that’s a practice in remembering to breathe, too. To pause when I want and need to, and ultimately find more space in my days. All of which sounds a little cliche; all of which is valid and important and yet can feel alienating. Why does it feel so isolating to make what I know is the right choice for my mental health?
But maybe that’s just how this thing goes. You get a little older and you stop wanting the same things you used to want. You get a little older and you start seeing the merits of changing up your pace, of earlier mornings, going out less, sober-curiosity (and of “Damp January,”3 because I’m not ready for it to be completely dry just yet). You get a little older.
I think many of us can attest to feeling we’ve aged more than three (!) years since 2020. It’s been both three years and three decades, and that is what it is. One positive—and I am always looking for them—is that of late, anything that reminds me to sl-o-o-ow the fuck down and feel into my body is appreciated so much more than it once would have been.
And maybe that’s just how this thing goes.
Other highlights from the ep:
Ezra and Ada talk about how much of Ada’s work is centered around being in community with animals, nature, and her ancestors. Love!
The idea of the suffering artist, and how for some time she was under the impression that she had to live in a big city, or in a place where it was hard to eke out a living in more ways than one
Her steadfast and poignant belief in the ability human beings have to change, to save ourselves time and time again—which is a belief I share wholeheartedly. What a relief and a beautiful, beautiful thing to hear someone voice that belief in such an eloquent way
Just listening to Ada speak, much less read her poems, is a dream. I loved hearing the calm and inspired way in which her thoughts unspooled. Willing to bet she’d really be something at ASMR4
No one can tell me that “poetry is dead.” Far from it. I choose to cling instead to its power: how it can evoke a desire to enter, further, into our humanness—even something so human as the rhythmic inhale and exhale of our breath amidst the tempestuousness of this world. How it can inspire a striving toward openness, too, and yes, a slowness we don’t always know we are seeking.
Not the big C, but it was rough, and didn’t exactly help to assuage my already less-than-stellar views on NYE. It’s always a letdown! but you know what, I had been talking about needing rest for so long; and really, the Universe delivered. (as in She said, “actually, you better sit your ass down for this one.”)
The first I heard of this term was through my sister, who mentioned a friend of hers thought of it as having “only a few drinks a week,” to which my sister responded, “You mean, how a normal person drinks?” My version involves significantly cutting down my alcohol consumption, but not berating myself if I falter occasionally. Or on the weekends. *clears throat* It’s not a New Year’s resolution, it’s an unfurling lifestyle change, a pumping of the brakes (are we beginning to sense a theme here?). More on the damp lifestyle via InStyle.
Truly, my love for ASMR is unparalleled. But that, too, is a subject for another edition of CK.
One mistake I've discovered I make with poetry, especially a poetry collection, is to move on from one poem to the next as if I was reading chapters from a novel. This year, I've decided I would open a book of poems and read one poem from it per day: but READ the poem, taking time out of my day to contemplate and digest. This post did a great job of justifying that decision. Thanks!