I had grand goals to write about fun writing exercises to play with bypassing the conscious mind, as is our intention in Bewilderness Writing. It’s one of my favorite subjects. I read up, made an outline, and sat down to write. And, then, I just couldn’t do it.

Sometimes you just can’t. 

I’ve had two people close to me diagnosed with cancer in the past few weeks, and all I can feel at this very moment is a kind of numbing despair. I know the words “numbing despair” sound melodramatic, but I think if I were to ask my subconscious mind, it would nod its head in agreement, adding, “That’s just how I roll. I’m the air that vibrates underneath the Tasmanian Devil dancing on the surface of your life”. (My subconscious loved Looney Tunes on Saturday morning.) It is a weight that fills my chest with rocks and chat, heavy and unyielding, while I go along with the tasks of everyday life. I think we all know that feeling. We carry on, continuing to walk forward, and whatever we’re dealing with comes with us like ankle weights. Some would call this “anticipatory grief”, and we all know that grief is an ocean unto itself.

Why all this when I am not the one that is ill? Just count your blessings, right? We all know it’s never that simple. I seem paralyzed with the dual thoughts of “what can I do to help and support?” along with the very real knowledge that “I can’t fix this.” This disparity feels like two walls closing in on me with very little room to turn around or breathe.

The temporary fix that seems to work for me is poetry. As a child with lots of questions I was often sent to “look it up”, whether in a dictionary, thesaurus, or the beloved encyclopedia. That’s where the answers were found, and my entire life I’ve gone to books, or now the internet, to “look it up” and get the answers. It’s a hard habit to break. 

But sometimes there is no book to go to. Sometimes I just have to sit with myself. I have to look at my thoughts, and make peace with what is ineffable. The answer can’t be found anywhere else but inside. 

And the best chaser to come afterwards, to me, is reading a poem. It is my favorite kind of self-soothing. I will often go to Wendell Berry or Mary Oliver, or pick a random book. I know it is a way to get out of my head and shift my thoughts. Whatever it does, it is balm.

So, join me in one of my favorite exercises of the subconscious. Come with me to the book Devotions by Mary Oliver, flip through the pages, stop anywhere, then read that poem. 

This is the poem I landed on:

Poppies

The poppies send up their

orange flares; swaying

in the wind, their congregations

are a levitation

 

of bright dust, of thin

and lacy leaves.

There isn’t a place

in this world that doesn’t

 

sooner or later drown

in the indigos of darkness,

but now, for a while,

the roughage

 

shines like a miracle

as it floats above everything

with its yellow hair.

Of course nothing stops the cold,

 

black, curved blade

from hooking forward—

               of course

loss is the great lesson.

 

But I also say this: that light

is an invitation

to happiness,

and that happiness

 

when it’s done right,

is a kind of holiness,

palpable and redemptive.

Inside the bright fields,

 

touched by their rough and spongy gold,

I am washed and washed in the river

of earthly delight—

And what are you going to do—

what can you do

about it—

deep, blue night?

Ahhh, yes. Write, meditate, read poems, dance—whatever works to find your way out of the “indigos of darkness” and to light that is a “kind of holiness.” Peace to you, my friends, and take your intermissions when you need to.