When You're So Busy, You Forget the Thing

Instructions from Ada Limón and Kate Baer

Welcome to Pocketful of Prose, a community for sharing stories. Links are in bold, and there’s an audio of this post if that works better for your life. It’s National Poetry Month, so this week I’m sharing a pocket that I wrote last year around this time about a poetry class I took with Ada Limón, the 24^th poet laureate of the United States. It was such a delicious and inspiring experience that I felt it was worth revisiting. For those of you who were with us last year when I shared this story, I’m including a new poem and prompt at the end of the post.

I first fell in love with Ada Limón where I have fallen in love many times in my life, listening to On Being with Krista Tippett. For those of you who are die hard On Being followers, like Ada and I, you know Krista went away for a while, and it was sad. Then, she came back, and it was even better than when Trader Joe’s brought back their dairy-free cherry chocolate chip ice cream, after discontinuing it for reasons no one who has taste buds could understand. They have since discontinued it again, but let’s not even go there.

When Krista interviewed Ada in February, I was experiencing some insomnia. This happens to me when I get really excited about things. The thing I was excited about, honest truth, was starting this Substack. For a while every night was like Christmas Eve, and I would wake up at three am wondering if I could get up and open my presents yet.

There are not a lot of benefits to being wide awake in the pre-dawn hours as far as I’m concerned, but this is how I discovered Ada Limón at three am this past February. I discovered Ada after she had already become famous, or whatever equivalent of famous exists in the world of poetry. Poets can probably still pick up their pharmaceutical prescriptions in peace. (If you haven’t made the New York Times Bestseller list yet, you might want to read this piece by Stephanie Land, author of Maid, and thank your lucky stars.)

Ada wrote her first book in 2006.  So, I’m not exactly a trend setter here. I’ve never really been a trend setter. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely nerd out over things like everyone else, I’m just sometimes a decade behind on what I’m nerding out over. Case in point, I’m just discovering Spotify.  I am rocking my overalls right on time now, but that’s only because I’ve been wearing them for the past thirty years.

In March, my friend Andrea shared one of Ada’s poems with me.  (Andrea writes Literary Merit now, where she recommends books, articles and other cool things, which you should check out because she really does recommend the best things.) I had just written a post about grieving and gardening, and as Andrea was gathering poems for the library’s April’s poetry display, to share before the first of the month (I envy those organizational skills), she came across Ada’s poem “Instructions On Not Giving Up.”

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

Has anyone ever gifted you a poem? Either one they have written or one they have chosen just for you because they think it might be soothing or instructive. They think perhaps it might work better than a hug, or perhaps they share it because at that moment, they can’t give you a hug. So, they share the next best thing.  When someone gives you a poem that fits like your favorite pair of thirty-year-old overalls, you feel seen.

I thanked Andrea for the poem and shared with her that Ada would be visiting Spokane soon, teaching a poetry workshop at our annual Get Lit Festival, and I couldn’t wait. I had signed up for the mailing list as soon as I saw Ada’s name on the docket. I was eagerly anticipating them selling tickets for the event. Andrea, again being more tethered to actual time and space than myself, wrote me back immediately and informed me that they had in fact already started selling tickets. (This might be the downside to having a Gmail account that is 97% full.) I bought my ticket before I finished reading Andrea’s text and texted her back so she could do the same. She wrote me back and said, “You must have gotten the last ticket,” as when she tried just a few minutes later, they were sold out. Amazingly, we are still friends.

I’d been looking forward to Ada’s workshop, since the day I ripped the ticket out of Andrea’s poem loving hands. I was giddy over it, not about stealing the last ticket, that wasn’t great, but the opportunity itself…to learn from Ada. I told my co-workers the morning before the workshop that I should probably lower my expectations. My best friend, Michelle, and I developed a theory when we were 13, in regard to expectations and disappointment, and this theory has served me pretty well in life. It is simply this, when your expectations are high, prepare yourself to be disappointed. Granted, we were 13, and our theory mostly applied to Kenny asking us to dance, or rather to move awkwardly alongside him, to “Everybody Dance Now,” in the middle school gym. The theory, though, has held up surprisingly well. I avoid expensive restaurants for this reason. I think if they are going to charge that much for food, then it must be other worldly, and it usually never is. Neato Burrito, on the other hand, our local burrito place, where I can get fresh salsa, fried tofu, black beans and cilantro inside a tortilla for under ten bucks, never disappoints.

Michelle and I, just a few weeks ago (Notice the overalls)

I knew I should ratchet down my enthusiasm for Ada, but I just couldn’t. To give you an idea of how excited I was, that same week, my students and I were going to see Trevor Noah. You may have heard of him.

Our multi-cultural book club read Born a Crime during the pandemic. It was powerful and hilarious. Andrea and I, mostly Andrea, that probably goes without saying, wrote a grant for books for our book club, and then I convinced the generous grant donors that in addition to books, perhaps they would also allow our students to partake in a field trip to see Trevor perform. After a few reassurances that I would get the students home alive and unscarred, they said yes. We could go see Trevor perform his comedy. The kids were over the moon about it, and don’t get me wrong, so was I, just not as over the moon as I was about the prospect of learning how to write a poem from Ada Limón.

I have had several disappointing encounters with famous people in the past, and most of those encounters have been a case of reality coming nowhere close to expectations. To be fair, some of those people were awful humans. One was a politician who cheated on his wife while she was dying of cancer. But even the encounters with folks whose books I have cherished and learned so much from, have been lukewarm at best.

But with Ada, I was hopeful it would be different, because it’s not just about her writing, it’s about how she looks at the world. How I would have loved to have a conversation with Mary Oliver. What a gift it is that I get to have one with Ada Limón. Also, maybe it’s a little about her writing. “Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, “I’ll take it all.”

I am happy to report that participating in Ada’s workshop exceeded my expectations. It was kind of like a rainbow spanning the city. It was just as magical as I hoped it would be. Ada was a lovely human. She had an infectious, loud, generous laugh that filled the room. She told us the world is both serious and hilarious.

She shared how as Poet Laureate, she finds herself so busy, and she is so grateful for the experience and the honor, but sometimes she is so busy, she doesn’t write. I know this feeling. What it’s like to be too busy (parenting, teaching, fill in your blank) fulfilling the duties of the thing, that you forget the thing. Ada reminded us, “the thing is what it’s all about.” She was excited to be with us because together we were going to be in the thing, the practice of writing. She intended to be fully present with us, and she wrote alongside us.

We spent two hours with her playing together with words. That was my biggest takeaway from the experience, the reminder that this writing thing should be fun. Creativity is not just an act of discipline; it is an invitation to play. The words will come, if we keep showing up, so we should try to have a little fun.

I know we can’t play and be fully present all the time, but I want to be in the thing more of the time. I know my best teaching is when I write and read alongside my students. I know my best parenting is when I’m playing with my kids. I know my best partnership is when my husband and I laugh with each other. But the duties of the thing, sometimes suck the life out of the thing. They pull us in the wrong direction, they pull us away from the actual thing, and we have to find our way back.

Ada Limón’s workshop was magic because for two hours she invited us to be in the thing with her. In doing so, she reminded us how to get home.

2024 update: This week was the first week of the Spring memoir course I teach at the Corbin Art Center, and I encouraged my students to play with poems. We read Kate Baer’s poem “How to Be Happy,” from her book And Yet.

How to Be Happy

Kate Baer

1) Wake up to the sound of the ocean

on your white noise machine. It is too expensive

2) To do the real thing, you must wing your legs

out of bed and shout “Ah! I am alive!” with just enough

3) Jubilation at the small things: coffee, cream, banana,

the way your son pronounces cauliflower like

4) Call a flower by what it is: a little rage. Remember

her bloom is not performing. Remember before you

5) Begin your big, important life

I encouraged my students to write their own instructions for happiness. Here’s my poem adapted from Kate’s.

How to Be Happy

1)   Don’t do anything

2)   Except pour tea and put your feet up and allow yourself to

3)   Notice the fatigue—and maybe how the seedlings too stretch for light

4)   As does your dear dog, remember you are not alone. She comes and curls into a ball at your feet. You rub her furry white neck with your soft mismatched socks. Remember this before you

5)   Begin your big, important life

I encourage you to write your own set of instructions this week, for not giving up, for happiness, for whatever your heart needs. It would be so fun if you shared them in the comments. Have a beautiful week!