i'm counting all of it
pleasure, prayer, absence, feeling alive
Hello! The days have been languorous lately, so oppressively hot and muggy it’s a miracle anyone can go outside without melting. I took a puppy on a 15-minute walk earlier today and picked her up and carried her for the last five minutes because I did not want to risk her suffering that exact fate, actually.
My days (weeks! months?) have also been characterized by indulgence — maybe yours too? This is how it always goes, come summer: the sun lingers for longer and so we do too, eating more and drinking more and saying yes, yes, I feel pleasure, it feels good. I also worry it’s easier to give in to pleasure when the future feels so bleak and uncertain. Asceticism, rigor, discipline: these are values for people who believe in some sort of great reward that lies ahead, making sacrifice worth it. I worry that just when those of us who are horrified and depressed by ~the state of things~ need to commit to some sort of action plan(?) is when I am, in some ways, saying “fuck it” and drinking another shiny beer and dancing until I can’t feel the balls of my feet anymore.
I’m being dramatic, obviously. Everyone can seek pleasure and also do the work, personally and collectively — in fact, that’s the only good option. But it’s hard in July, when the temperature hovers at 100 degrees and there is no such thing as good News.
The poem “Prayer (Impossible)” by Carrie Fountain, one in a 13-poem series called “Prayer” from her 2014 book “Instant Winner,” speaks to this moment, for me. Maybe you’ll like it too, if “running out of time running out of time” ticks like a metronome in your head some days.
She doesn’t care!! This is a collection about motherhood, which is evident in this poem, but the themes feel universal. I think a lot of life can feel like wasted time and a lot of absence feels like the space where you hole up and wait for life to begin. The opposite of absent is present, which I think in its own way is what this poem is reminding us to be. It all adds up to your life, sharp and sweet and watery and cold all at once. You might not want to miss it.
XO,
G