A Lived Experience

What the Living Do

By Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days,

    some utensil probably fell down there.

And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and

    the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is

    the everyday we spoke of.

It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and

    the sunlight pours through

the open living room windows because the heat’s on too

    high in here, and I can’t turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries

    in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And

    yesterday, hurrying along those

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my

    coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a

    hairbrush: This is it.

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What

    you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come

    and the winter to pass. We want

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want

    more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a

    glimpse of myself in the window glass,

say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m

   gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned

    coat that I’m speechless:

I am living, I remember you.

Through her poem What the Living Do, Marie Howe creates a powerful sense of companionship with both Johnny and the reader in the first sentence. Howe carries this relationship forward in sharing the awkward and gritty details of her day. The plumbing needs, the bad smells, slamming of doors, spilling her coffee…. details that we can all relate to in daily existence. As a reader, I felt a kinship with the author’s continual wrestling with multiple, inconvenient challenges representative of our embodiment, as well as the continual wanting of more…just more, or different than what is. Along with the details rides angst, acceptance, and recognition, “This is what the living do.”  Oh yes, this is just what we do! …or, oh dear, is this all that what we do? 

Existence is an experience of such immense proportions that perhaps poetry, art and song hold the best possibility for description. How do we approach and hold the terrifying and evil aspects of existence, the continual contradictions and uncertainty? Most of us could probably admit that existence is indeed, messy. Often when extreme attempts are made at categorizing and tidying up, the consequences are likely to truncate a natural flow or spontaneity of life. In reference to a spiritual path or religion this has come to be defined as spiritual bypass, in politics and culture it may show up as a dualistic or polarized mind as described by Schneider (2013).

This poem leaves us with a shared moment of awe as Howe describes a feeling of “a cherishing so deep,” her own flawed image reflected in window. And there is the kinship once again as we accompany the author in the paradoxical moment as grief overlays with mystery.

  Existential theory and thought does not shy away from the complexity of human experience. As opposed to attempting to solve and define a situation, existential therapy elicits more description, examination, inquisitiveness, awareness and openness, which then lead toward change. Through this poem we share the poet’s experience of loss, of love, of recollection, a newly found awareness and a sense of acceptance- I am living, Johnny is no longer living- change.

 —

 Schneider, K.J. (2013). The polarized mind: Why it’s killing us and what we can do about it. Colorado Springs, CO: University Professors Press.