The universal "Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate" says it all. The weariness of the superficial v. desire for deeper engagement. The focus on the "doing" rather than the "being". And perhaps Nye's need to stay immersed and avoid distraction. I look forward to your new essay...
That’s lovely, and I certainly understand that urge to disappear, the sense of impermanence about the world. But it seems to me also a bit of a departure from Nye’s usual approach to interacting with the outside world. In Red Brocade, she says
No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.
And in Gate A-4, she says “this is the world I want to live in. The shared world.”
I guess with Nye, and perhaps with many of us, there is an ebb and flow to these things. We reach out to the stranger in need, but we also retreat into ourselves in our daily lives.
Thanks for sharing the poem, and your thoughts. Definitely food for thought!
"Tell them you have a new project. / It will never be finished." How I love this!! And how shocked I was at first to hear it from Naomi Shihab Nye, who I think of as the exemplar of welcoming others. But I love how this poem shows that she discerns between contact with others that enhances life and contact that's just small talk or posturing. And how it is death, tumbling like a leaf, that helps us choose well what to do with our time. How spot-on she is! Finding the important things does mean disappearing from the unimportant ones. And even catching up with an old acquaintance might fall in the latter category! This is bracing advice, great encouragement to keep choosing wisely. Good starch for the spine. Thanks for this, Devin!
I have been paring down, separating the wheat from the chaff. Here are some quotes, including yours, Devin Kelly: "I am living with the little intimacy I call my body, making out of it something too important to forget. Maybe I am disappearing. Maybe I am not catching anything. Maybe there is nothing to finish. Maybe I will never catch up." From Ernest Hemingway: "The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without. -Ernest Hemingway, author, journalist, Nobel laureate (21 Jul 1899-1961)". From Charley Johnson on Untangled/Substack:"I want time to feel slow and expansive. I want each day to feel justified on its own terms. I want the value of each activity to lie in the doing, not in the end result."
The universal "Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate" says it all. The weariness of the superficial v. desire for deeper engagement. The focus on the "doing" rather than the "being". And perhaps Nye's need to stay immersed and avoid distraction. I look forward to your new essay...
Thanks, I enjoyed your journey through Naomi Shihab Nye's wonderful poem (new to me, though I a a big fan). I hope it's okay to share my poem on impermanence. https://www.rattle.com/a-daily-practice-by-michael-mark/ Thanks.
Sorry about your knee and your recent tumble from the bike!
That’s lovely, and I certainly understand that urge to disappear, the sense of impermanence about the world. But it seems to me also a bit of a departure from Nye’s usual approach to interacting with the outside world. In Red Brocade, she says
No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.
And in Gate A-4, she says “this is the world I want to live in. The shared world.”
I guess with Nye, and perhaps with many of us, there is an ebb and flow to these things. We reach out to the stranger in need, but we also retreat into ourselves in our daily lives.
Thanks for sharing the poem, and your thoughts. Definitely food for thought!
"Tell them you have a new project. / It will never be finished." How I love this!! And how shocked I was at first to hear it from Naomi Shihab Nye, who I think of as the exemplar of welcoming others. But I love how this poem shows that she discerns between contact with others that enhances life and contact that's just small talk or posturing. And how it is death, tumbling like a leaf, that helps us choose well what to do with our time. How spot-on she is! Finding the important things does mean disappearing from the unimportant ones. And even catching up with an old acquaintance might fall in the latter category! This is bracing advice, great encouragement to keep choosing wisely. Good starch for the spine. Thanks for this, Devin!
I have been paring down, separating the wheat from the chaff. Here are some quotes, including yours, Devin Kelly: "I am living with the little intimacy I call my body, making out of it something too important to forget. Maybe I am disappearing. Maybe I am not catching anything. Maybe there is nothing to finish. Maybe I will never catch up." From Ernest Hemingway: "The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without. -Ernest Hemingway, author, journalist, Nobel laureate (21 Jul 1899-1961)". From Charley Johnson on Untangled/Substack:"I want time to feel slow and expansive. I want each day to feel justified on its own terms. I want the value of each activity to lie in the doing, not in the end result."