109. What The Living Do
“I've been thinking: This is what the living do.”
What The Living Do
A poem by Marie Howe
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.
Prompt:
This is what the living do…
Use this line from Marie Howe’s poem as inspiration—perhaps as the opening sentence of your journal entry, or as a poetic refrain. Reflect on the mundane; revel in the glorious everyday details of living.
Alli Howells
Location: Austin, Texas
About: This is a poem about being present, about finding the small joys in life and experiencing them as fully as possible.
Age: 20
On Monday, it was hearing the blender
kick on downstairs.
Tuesday, it was feeling the sunshine
warm my cheek, through the
passenger window.
Wednesday, it was tasting the
sweetness of a ripe orange.
Thursday, it was watching
the dog sleep on the kitchen tile.
On Friday, it was feeling the
ribbed leaf on a tree out front.
Saturday, it was waking up
to a lazy, groggy sunrise.
On Sunday, it was all of us,
laughing around the table.
These are the moments
where I notice a break
in the rhythm of life,
a crack in the cosmos where
the magic pours through.
For a split second,
the curtain falls and in
the unveiling, I see everything;
every illusion, every secret
willingly becomes exposed.
These are the fleeting moments
of knowing,
‘this is what the living do’.
We laugh, we feel, we wake,
we mosey around in these
bodies of ours,
soaking it all in, feeling
everything
like the seeping, sopping
sponges
we are.
Carolyn Usher
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
About: It is 13 years since my mother moved on to the next chapter. I still see so much of my life as reflected in her eyes.
Age: 69
Mom, it is 13 years since you left us to begin your next chapter. I don’t cry much about it anymore but I do get mist- eyed very easily. I want to tell you about the very best of my life these days.
I am now a grandmother of three gorgeous little girls aged 8, 6 and 4. When I look at them, I see you. Because I know they would be the very best part of your life too.
As you know, I had two sons. So beyond their preciousness as wee humans, there is the sheer fun of having girls to play with. For my birthday last year Abby took me for a pedicure. At 3, it was her first! This weekend she came for a two-night sleepover. We baked cupcakes and tried on makeup and had a dance party. When Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah shuffled on, Abby listened very quietly. Later she wandered around the house singing “Hallelujah, Halleluuuuuujaaaah.” She has an ear for great music, that one.
I picked up the guitar and she got out the big bongos and let loose on Rocka My Soul. When we were in Cuba your son-in-law wanted to know why I was buying them. I told him, “For the girls to play.” He thought I was dreaming but there she was, playing the bongos. Am I just being a grandma when I say Abby kept amazing time and we were definitely making music? Yup, we were.
We did a lot of drawing and colouring with Sharpies. Right now I am into a beautiful bug phase so when she saw all the gorgeous bugs I’d been making she wanted to draw a garden with me. In fact when it was time to go home she insisted on taking one of my bug books with her to copy from while we drove. I remember how I loved it when my grandmother, your mother, would sit down at the table and draw beautiful ladies with me. You once told me she had never done that with you. You did sew with her and you taught me as well. My older granddaughters, Charlotte and Madeline are keen to start sewing with me. At 6 and 8, they are already sophisticated fashionistas and have designs for what they want to make this winter.
When any of the girls are sleeping over, Poppa heads for the guestroom and we snuggle up in my bed. There is nothing as sweet as sleeping with a small child. Warm, soft, sweaty, snuggly. Half way through the night Abby is standing up tearing off her jammies “I’m sweating!” She is going to be hell on a husband in her menopause years.
When we go to bed, the girls ask me to tell them true stories. I tell them about the ostrich that laid two eggs at my feet and the St Bernard called Sheba who liked to sneak into bed with me and Poppa. “Tell me more stories,” they beg. “The true ones.” I started telling the girls bedtime stories from my own life because my eyes could no longer make out the Bernstein Bears in the dim bulb of their night lamps. Now the girls all want “Nana’s true stories.” I love it.
I tell them about you too Mom. About the Saskatchewan grasshoppers that jumped up your skirt in the summer and how you went to school in the winter on a snow sled hooked up to horses, hot bricks at your feet. I tell them about your mother, my grandmother. I tell them the happy stories of kneading bread and a treadle sewing machine and I show them the button box that holds the fancy buttons cut off and reused over so many generations of our family. There will be more stories in the future. Stories of deprivation and resilience and heartache and strength. I will tell them, in due course what they are made of. It is their heritage. The strength that starches the spine of the women before them. It is theirs too. And they will need it in this world we have brought them into.
I am writing a book for them, Mom. To tell them all the stories. To keep the people they come from alive in their minds when I am not here. Can you just imagine, Mom? My wee girls telling their own children and grandchildren the stories of us?
I don’t know how it works where you are now, but maybe we’ll be able to listen together.
Serene Asaari Duhaithem
Location: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
About: I am simply a writer because the words somehow always find me even when I hide, even when I try to forget. The words shine a light for me to find a way, my way through this dark world.
Age: 21
“I am living. I remember you.”
Words stricken me deep, strangely reminding me of a past that was and never will be again
Of a childhood, no more
Of a warm smile and eyes, full of sonder
Eyes filled with the stories of others, whom I would never meet
She carried it all with grace
Again, of a kind lady sweeping the falling leaves of her trees
I can still hear the sounds of her broom cackling with the earth as silence envelopes me in a tight embrace
Once again, of dinner after dinner of warm laughter and good foods
Her, in her seat right by the man she loved the most
Seems so long ago since that past has been
All existing in the chemistry of my electric mind
Sofia was here.
I am sure for all those houses were homes because she was that
Home to those who were lost, for the ones who don’t belong
A soft presence, a light in the burning night
She was here, I remember.
I remember it all: walking on the bright, damp grass
Shining, beautiful green as we all reached her grave to greet
We are here, you are not…
We remember you though, we haven’t forgot.
Tara Rudman
Location: Sebastopol, CA
About: As a creative person, I paint, write, dance, and take photographs. The natural environment, life experience, and Marie Howe’s prompt inspired this piece.
Age: 65
Darkness envelopes the circle of light I cast out the window on this early Fall morning. Prompted by Jaspers low growls - just a quick sweep to see what particular wild creature might be about.
It came imperceptibly, kick started by the extreme heat - up in smoke with the worst wildfires in California history. Our skies were yellow, dusty peach, ember red, frightening.
Yesterday a walk in the woods following the creek, I see how dry it all has gone. The verdant ferns of summer and other lively plants have curled themselves back into the earth.
The light so exquisite where we lingered in the meadow, there by the oldest apple tree and another crowned with golden apples and a halo of them beneath its branches.
Blakeian beams from the rising sun caught the changing season as a Wyeth painting.
Once tall and graceful Queen Ann’s Lace with wide flat discs of tiny white flowers have become ballon shape cages on stiff stems, presumably seeds held within.
Jasper darting after a falling apple wrestling it in his front paws as he bites into the freshness of it.
These are the glorious moments, just standing there - being.
Being happy, grateful, that the trees all around and in the distance are still here, there, as they have been — not a charred version of their former selves.
I gently pick two Gravensteins from the elder tree and three Goldens, gently twisting their stems in hope of not disturbing others to fall. I cradle them in one arm and take a bite of a Golden -sweet, juicy, and crisp, as it should be!
I regret the waste but it’s been a tough season.
Just as imperceptibly, December 31st will come and pass, marking the ninth year.
I keep doing what the living do.