I switched on NPR last week while driving to work and a man was reading a poem. Not just a poem. A poem that nearly smacked me in the head and shouted at me. In a loving but concerned way. Like a good friend or a Sister would. You know what I mean?
It moved me so much, I "Googled" it when I got home and read it.....and read it......and read it again. I let each word sink in and swirl around my brain. She was really on to something here.
I would like to share it with you.
Here it is.
Advice to Myself
Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic—decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it,
don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
"Advice to Myself" by Louise Erdrich from
Original Fire. © Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.
To me this poem is screaming to get your #$%$ together. Get your head on straight, man. What else can be more important in your life? Do it now. Don't wait! The dusting can wait, the everyday tasks that you sometimes see as a priority......you got it all wrong. YOU are the priority. Now is the priority. THIS moment is the priority. What is on the inside of you is what matters. Get that in order first and foremost. Get connected. Are you with me?
I highlighted the parts that were screaming at me. Are they talking to you at all? Are they yelling? If so, do something. Show up for the lesson. Once you start to wake up you will notice these "lessons" just show up for you. Out of thin air, they start to show up. Attend. Participate in them. Maybe meditate, be in the now, clear your head, follow your bliss.
This poem just resonates with me. I hope you enjoyed it too.
Love,
Mama Nic
