29. Vulnerability – Maggie Rogers
As a songwriter, I’ve found vulnerability to be a source of real power. It’s at the core of how I’ve defined the greatest songwriting
Throughout my life I’ve thought of vulnerability as a shield. My logic goes something like—if I tell you my whole truth, everything I’m feeling, then there’s no ammo left for you to hurt me. It’s been my default defense mechanism for as long as I can remember. I was the kid in the second grade telling everyone who I had a crush on instead of trying to keep it a secret.
As a songwriter, I’ve found vulnerability to be a source of real power. It’s at the core of how I’ve defined the greatest songwriting —songs that have the ability to take one person’s experience and make it universal, songs that can clearly and simply express one’s feelings, needs, and desires.
I want to hold your hand. I want to dance with somebody. I want to be your dog. I want it that way. I want to break free.
— Maggie Rogers
Prompt :
In your deepest core, in your most vulnerable moments—what do you want?
Maggie Rogers
Andrea Hug
Location: Arlington Heights, Illinois
About: I guess I’d say I’m a girl of few words now. I started writing a haiku every day beginning in February. I used your prompts to focus them. How hard could it be? It’s only 17 syllables! It seemed so easy! Ha! It’s quite limiting and challenging! But it gets to the heart of it.
Age: 56
Peace is With You
Sew. Walk. Drink. Repeat. Tunnel Vision: seek the Light. Tʼwas never a race.
Shelter in Place ordered 35 days ago. What started as ‘What can I do?ʼ has abruptly veered off course. The 100 yard dash looks more like a marathon now. In the throes of the weekly pivots Iʼve tried to outrun the
bustle while my insides churn at a flustered pace. Who walks 12 miles in a day? Every day?!?
I ask again, ‘What can I do?ʼ
The ‘ʼditherʼ became ‘distressʼ.
The ‘distressʼ became ‘disturbedʼ.
The disturbed highlights the exposure which made me unable to quiet hagridden
verdicts.
Until... Until I allowed my vulnerability to become a crucible.
Lean in. “Be Still.” Peace is with me.
It was never a race.
Ann Kim
Location: San Francisco, CA
About: I am a debut author. The inspiration for these journal entries was the loneliness of life and the small comforts of home.
Age: 55
I Want to be Seen
Sung to the tune of I Contain Multitudes (2020)
With apologies to Walt Whitman and Bob Dylan
Today, tomorrow, and yesterday, too
I shy from the limelight, as I so often do
Don’t like the attention, don’t want to be judged
I stand in the background, my image all smudged
I don’t bother with makeup, don’t polish or preen
But sometimes, I want to be seen.
I’ve got a beat-skipping heart, like a poet in love
I pray to whomever may watch from above
For the handsome young man I kissed once in June
For the much-adored brother I lost far too soon
Lost in the mem’ries of life lush and green
But sometimes, I want to be seen.
A slideshow of moments both happy and grim
A ring on my finger that binds me to him
Tell me, what’s next? What should I do?
Why do I sometimes feel empty and blue?
I live a straight life that is proper and clean
But sometimes, I want to be seen.
I'm just like Anne Frank, stuck behind a false wall
I’ve often been known to stumble and fall
I steer clear of the edge, stay inside the lines
I follow the rules and obey the signs.
I’m known to be prudent, soft-spoken and calm
My purpose in life: to act as a balm
To take care of others, attend to their needs
Good thoughts, good words, and good deeds
A life spent in service, all substance, no sheen
But sometimes, I want to be seen.
That day when we meet, you look past my face
As if I exist in a far distant place
Is it because I don’t demand space
Or maybe because I gave up the race?
I rarely complain, but now hear my scream:
Yes, I’ll admit it, I want to be seen.
Anonymous
I want to be loved. I want to love deeply. I want to feel the thrill again. To be out there like kids. I want to catch that kind of sunlight that beams and washes both the dust and the problems away, because that warm space you cherish, is the reason you endure pain.
I want to laugh at inside jokes, create a new language and find a way that includes us both, that doesn’t cast a shadow on one’s dream for the other to be happy, to look for the kind of simple fulfillment that is to keep going because you got somebody else’s hand.
I want to feel peace, I want to find peace in some arms, and I know it’s only through myself that I will get there, but what a joy it is to find other’s limbs as an extension of that stillness.
I want to love again the small of my back, that place that feels empty because it is set for another hand.
That place where a hand becomes a safety net to embrace what’s coming, where you get the little push you need to find strength, the place where you seek out for comfort on hard days.
And I want to intertwine my forever cold feet with others’ whose are always warm, to build a kingdom of conversations beneath the sheets, skin to skin, flesh to flesh, where nobody knows now where the other ends.
I want to fight to learn new things, in a place where the other doesn’t fear my ideas, but has the intelligence to debate, even in some cases to mix both our senses and create a new answer, because respect is a weapon to fight all the battles.
I want to find meaning through love again, I don’t want to fill a space that nobody else could fill, I want to create a new one, I want to deepen, to expand. I want to make space, to feel pain and happiness mixed with the immensity that comes with the uncertainty of loving another being.
Daniela Went
Location: North Kingstown, RI
About: Maggie Roger’s music is an anthem, a solace, and a dance party all in one. With this prompt—and with her sincere lyrics—encouraged me to get to my deepest desires, what I wish to actively seek and what brings me meaning. I want to continue reflecting on what enriches life for me.
Age: 22
Julie Ocken
Location: Portland, OR
About: submitting anything i've written is definitely a place where i feel vulnerable. i generally try not to think about how people judge me. and i don't think i'm a particularly good writer, but i enjoy it... so why not submit this specific prompt?
Age: 43
my most vulnerable moments... when i'm crying and upset and such a mess? when i'm exposed and sharing naked photos with people who may not respect me? when... when? when am i most vulnerable?
i don't know. but i do think my desire in those moments doesn't really change.
"i just want everyone to be happy and safe."
it's on my list of 10 things i love about myself. as it has always been — and/but so much more so in the current world.
i guess when i say it, i'm mostly thinking about friends, family, my favorite vendors, children, pets... those who are most vulnerable. i guess when i say it, i often forget that i am a part of "everyone" (often apart from — a whole other story of my life). in my most vulnerable moments, i want others to see or help me be happy and safe.
it's about care and kindness and respect and concern for the well-being of everyone around me. i don't remember often enough that means it's about care and kindness and respect and concern for the well-being of me too.
i'm hard on myself. i push my brain and my body, my mind. and heart. it breaks and is scarred so easily. it's not always happy and safe, in part because i don't treat it as i should all the time — and in part because i let others take advantage of it. in my most vulnerable moments especially.
it's about give and take and sharing and being intentional. doing things and acting with integrity. "always" is the goal. in the most trying, scary, sad, and painful moments is when it's the most difficult — and when it's most necessary.
Madison Gill
Location: Colorado
About: The broad nature of this prompt intimidated me at first. It felt like far too complex a question to answer in one entry/poem. But as I sat and really considered what it was I truly wanted out of my life, the answers just sort of flowed out of me – and it turns out they were pretty simple.
Age: 25
The Next Life
I want to quit my job at the restaurant.
Escape with you to a mild-weathered
mountain sweet spot. Put hammer to nail
and start building our lives’ work.
Plant the seeds our children will watch bud,
blossom and fruit
if we ever have any.
I want as many long years together as we can get.
I want to live to be 100. I want to watch the world
from a front porch rocking chair evolve into a state
I can bear to leave it in. When I open my eyes on
the other side, I want the souls of everyone I love
to welcome me in an embrace of feathered wings.
I want them to say: See? You were right! We’ve been here
the whole time. More than anything, I want you next to me.
And when the time comes to make the long journey
in another body, I want you to follow me
into the next life.
Maggie Skorup
Location: New York City
About: Maggie Rogers's Instagram post was what first drew me into the Isolation Journals experience. She is such a fierce and vulnerable and beautiful icon that I look up to in every sense of our shared humanness and name. This felt like such a deeply human prompt that will help capture and document the shared 2020 experience.
Age: 27
For people to be able to self soothe. For our new company to be a success - for our team and for the world. To be happy and to be kind so that I also make the people around me and those I love happy. To be loved for who I am - mean moments and funny moments and ridiculous Maggie moments and everything in-between. To be remembered as a positive light and radiant energy in the world - both now, when I leave people with an impression, and as a legacy. To have enough time to do something cool in my life and make an impact. To fall in love and stay in love. To have people respect and like me. To be able to adventure and love the life I lead. To at some point (in the hopefully not too distant future) have a meaningful conversation with my Dad. To enjoy the complexities, feel all of the waves of happiness and pain and ups and downs of this time we are living in.
Ryan Chepita
Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada
About: I am so grateful. Writing in this beautiful community feels like I have unlocked long-dormant treasures within me, or unearthed a treasure chest in the forest. The Isolation Journals have not just helped me to stay afloat in this era; it has helped me to thrive.
Age: 42
Want (in exactly 100 words)
I want so much.
I want to be surrounded by people who carefully consider every line, whose minds can be changed, who can make me reconsider.
I want respect for people and the environment, peace, and truth.
I want to matter and to be loved and to appreciate those who do.
I want the same for all you anonymous kindred spirits, sharing your heartfelt words.
The cliched beauty pageant speech is real to me.
I have so much, and I want to be always thankful.
Yet I also want so much, and I want to be more hungry than complacent.