Safer at Home: A Soothing Essay from Dahlia Lithwick

[jesse_the_k]

Yesterday SLATE published Dahlia Lithwick’s insightful and helpful essay on self-isolation "How to Spend the Time." It discusses the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and a mindset approach that is helpful for me.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/how-to-spend-time-quarantine.html

zero percent of my time goes to apologizing for the fact that I am lucky, because I spent two weeks doing that and it’s not clear it helped anyone feel better. I am lucky. Many of us are lucky right now. Some of us will not be lucky later, but we won’t know that until after. Rather than apologizing for being lucky, I spend time being grateful. I spend at least 80 percent of my day being grateful, and telling people that I am grateful. It is one thing that helps.

[… snip …]

I really never quite liked it when Michelle Obama reminded us that when they go low, we have to go high. I guess because I am so unutterably tired of being punched in the knees. But now is the time to learn about going as high as you can, because that is the hardest thing when you’re terrified.

She references Marge Piercy’s poem "To Be of Use," which I love so much it was part of our wedding ceremony, two months shy of 40 years ago.

To Be of Use — Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Its home on the web: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57673/to-be-of-use

Comments

[wendelah1]

That's a fine, inspiring poem. Thank you for sharing it.

We're planning to celebrate our 40th anniversary this year, too.

[jesse_the_k]

<3

Did you have Big Plans? (As of now, we're planless.)

[wendelah1]

No, The Big Plans got jettisoned last year when Kyle was diagnosed with cancer. We were hoping to visit the south of France. Then the pandemic hit. Travel has been risky for him for awhile but it's really fraught now for everyone.

[tei]

The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

I love this, thank you.

[jesse_the_k]

<3

[cynthia1960]

Thanks, this is useful.

[jesse_the_k]

<3 I'm so happy to be of use :,)

[boxofdelights]

I love that poem too!

The speaker at Phoebe's graduation read it. I don't know how it reads to young adults like them, or you at your wedding, who have so many opportunities in front of them; it speaks so loudly to me about longing for work and not getting it.

[jesse_the_k]

When we were young it was a hopeful guidance, along the lines of "look for the helpers."

And now — you've captured that melancholic regret of not being able to contribute.