At West End Gallery
I have been thinking about the difference between our highs and lows, between those times when we feel on top of the world and those times when we feel as though we are in an abyss. It’s a typical holiday theme for me, when such contrasts seem to stand out among so many people, including myself.
I wonder what it is in an individual that makes them swing one way or the other, high or low. Is it a massive difference in circumstance and perception between these people?
Or is it just matter of degrees? Could it be that there are times when we only feel 51% positive about everything but that is enough to swing us to what feels like a high point? And could there be other times when we are only feeling 51% gloomy but that tips the scales enough so that we feel as though the bottom has dropped out on one’s life?
It seems plausible, given how quickly these swings can shift. But maybe that’s just me. I don’t know, of course. Just thinking out loud. Actually, this thought came after coming across the post below from four years back where the poet Maggie Smith (not the wonderful British actress who we lost this past year) described life as at least fifty percent terrible. Made me think of things in matter of degrees and what is entailed in shifting those the balance one way or the other. I would really like to know.
At the very bottom, I have added this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s Superstar from the Carpenters, the brother-sister duo that I never shared here before. Probably because I wasn’t a fan when I was kid and they were everywhere, constantly on the radio and TV. You couldn’t flip on a variety show back then without seeing the two. But over the years, I came to truly appreciate them, especially the glorious tone of Karen Carpenter‘s voice. Her voice seldom fails to provoke a response within me. That would have been a shock to the 12-year-old me back in the day.
But I made the choice of this song not only because it is beautifully written (Leon Russell wrote it with singer Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney & Bonnie), arranged, and performed, but because Karen Carpenter knew more than a little about living a life of shifting degrees. Give a listen and be thankful if you’re seeing the world at least 51% positive today.
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.
I came across this 2016 poem from American poet Maggie Smith very early this morning and it really struck a chord.
We all want things right now, want them to be complete and perfect. Move in ready. But things are seldom that way. It requires imagination and desire to see the potential that things hold. And hard work and determination to reach that potential.
“This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”
Indeed.
I had never seen or heard this poem but it is quite well known. It has been read and published around the world and Maggie Smith is often asked to read it at events. She calls it her Freebird, which is quite a funny line.
It was written in the aftermath of the 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people. Its popularity was maintained through the momentous 2016 elections here and in the UK –it was called “Official Poem of 2016” by the BBC/Public Radio International— and has continuously popped up throughout the past four years as folks to try to maintain optimism in the dark atmosphere that has marked this era.
I somehow missed it until about 5:30 this morning. Always late to the dance.
But I imagine that this poem will remain popular because, as she points out, the world is at least fifty percent terrible and will no doubt remain so. It will always require plenty of imagination, desire, determination — and throw in loads of blood, sweat and tears– to overcome the awfulness that resides side-by-side with us in this world so that we can make it into that perfect home we all dream of for ourselves.
“This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”
Indeed.
Redtree Times 