Thanksgiving

and two poems by William Stafford

“I feel like my life is over,” I said to one of my friends in early 2023, soon after my son was born. I believed I was facing social and financial ruin. At the time, my health was going in and out, too. I kept trying to figure out next steps, but my future felt like a blank, like there was nothing I could imagine, like all I could do was put one foot in front of the other; to continue doing what had to be done, moment by moment.

I remember, at one point, I had a break from watching my baby, and so I went to the Chocolate Dragon, an amazing chocolate shop in Oakland. There was a stationery store next door and I walked in. I hadn’t been to such a frivolous store in months. They were selling some cool graph paper, so I bought it, not knowing what I would do with it. My motions felt almost… random. I thought about how my financial circumstances meant it didn’t make sense for me to buy this random thing. But was I buying the paper because it was something that made sense, or just because I thought I ought to buy cool paper, because that’s the sort of thing I used to do, occasionally, back when my life was different?

I thought maybe I would read or write something while imbibing one of the Dragon’s chocolate drinks, but when I sat down with the graph paper, there was nothing. I practiced my penmanship for a little while. Finally I wrote the only words that came to my mind: Numb, numb, numb.

A few months later, I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The therapist who diagnosed me showed me a brief slide presentation, which included a line chart about recovery, with a trough in the line. She told me that I was in the trough. She said: One of the symptoms of PTSD is that you feel like you aren’t going to make it. But that’s just a symptom. Right now you feel like you aren’t going to make it. But you will. You will.

What did I write that year? I look back and see… almost nothing. In mid-2023, a Substack representative recruited me to be on the platform, and so I imported several older writings from one of my other websites. I told myself I would start writing again. But when I glance through my archive, I find only two pieces written in 2023. Both are very short: One was called “Sources of Light” (whose text I later included in a more recent post, “Spiritual Foods”). The other was called “Fidelity.”

Anyway.

I made it. I don’t know exactly what’s coming next, but I know that I no longer feel like I’m not going to make it. And I don’t think it would have happened if people hadn’t shown up: Family, friends, far-flung connections, even strangers on social media, some of whom are now my friends. I’ve quoted the aphorism before that “the people who show up in a crisis are not the people you expect.” That was very true for me. It’s also true that not everyone makes it.

One thing I am very grateful for is Substack and for those of you who have been reading and supporting my work here. Thank you for your attention, and for your presence.

I’ve also been having a surprisingly good time lately on Twitter/X. For one thing, I’ve stumbled into a corner of the platform where people post poems a lot. So today, I tried to think of a poem that felt right to share on Thanksgiving. I remembered this one that I saw recently by William Stafford after someone else shared it on Twitter:

Yes

It could happen at any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out — no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

I looked up William Stafford while I was writing this post. He was an American poet who died in 1993. This was his last poem:

Are You Mr. William Stafford?

“Are you Mr. William Stafford?”
“Yes, but....”

Well, it was yesterday.
Sunlight used to follow my hand.
And that’s when the strange siren-like sound flooded
over the horizon and rushed through the streets of our town.
That’s when sunlight came from behind
a rock and began to follow my hand.

“It’s for the best,” my mother said — “Nothing can
ever be wrong for anyone truly good.”
So later the sun settled back and the sound
faded and was gone. All along the streets every
house waited, white, blue, gray; trees
were still trying to arch as far as they could.

You can’t tell when strange things with meaning
will happen. I’m [still] here writing it down
just the way it was. “You don’t have to
prove anything,” my mother said. “Just be ready
for what God sends.” I listened and put my hand
out in the sun again. It was all easy.

Well, it was yesterday. And the sun came,
Why
It came.