My reading lately has introduced me to two beautifully done, though emotionally challenging, pieces, i.e., this by Martha Bayne and this by Adele Myers; two exciting writers, Cheryl Strayed and Elissa Bassist, their recent dialogue and work, which I’ve added to the “to-read” list on my new goodreads profile; a great poem, “I had been sad for so long that it shocked me,” by Ruth L. Schwartz in the April 2013 issue of The Sun. Thanks to the publication of The Third Trimester Malaise on Brain, Child’s website (thanks again, Marcelle Soviero), I also discovered an online community of foster moms, one of whom, Sarah Green, had an essay published alongside mine. And then today, this great poem by Danusha Laméris.
With a first line like that, how could you not keep reading?
There is something comforting in inventory, in the acts of assessing and trying to break life down into pieces small enough to swallow. The notion that I can measure all this randomness relieves and empowers. It’s why I try so hard to make sense of the world, despite “How steadily it resists.” Aren’t we all, in this sense, like Laméris’s God of Numbers, who rises before dawn to measure his work?
Recently, I’ve wished I could give the shifting plates of my life a “good, hard shake,” and have all of the broken chips fall exactly where I’d place them. As I’ve groaned about my inability to dictate the outcomes of recent circumstances and to make sense of the senseless, I conclude, somewhat begrudgingly, that it’s probably best to simply follow the recent advice I received from a friend:
“You know what they say. If you can’t make sense of it, don’t try.”
Do they say that? I don’t know. Regardless, point taken.
Emily Dagostino 