"You're too wonderful for anybody to realize you."

Do you cherish life while you live it?

Central Park, NYC, via Amazing Eyes

Dear You,

Here are the most famous lines from “Our Town,” one of the most famous plays of all time:

Emily: "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"

Stage Manager: "No. Saints and poets, maybe--they do some….Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

*

Last week, I had a holiday treat. My dear friend, Emily Esfahani Smith (whose book, The Power of Meaning, you’d probably love) came to NYC for a day, and we went to see the famous Thornton Wilder play, “Our Town”. I may be the only American who’d never seen it before, didn’t even know what it was about. But it reached me deeply, and I was trailed for days after by the play’s quiet insistence that we, who are still living, should cherish our lives more than we do - that we focus so much on its trials and anxieties, some of which we won’t even care about in three months’ time - that we don’t really get it.

So here. This is a poem for you. So that you get it.

It’s called “What The Living Do”, and it was recommended to me by Quiet Life member David Baldwin, with a simple note saying: “This seemed like a poem you’d enjoy.”

You were right, David.

And I bet you, Kindred Letter reader, will love it too.

Ice-skating by night in Vienna, 1910. Image via WikiVictorian.

“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.

Snowy ballerina, via EvaLovesDesign

I really hope you enjoyed these lines, this poem, these images.

And as always, let’s end with some questions, for you to think about privately, and/or to share with us below:

*Do you think you cherish your life?

*Or do you sometimes forget to “realize life while you live it”?

*Or is it not that you forget, but that life sometimes seems too difficult?

*If you do cherish your life, what thoughts, practices, outlooks, help you to do this?

*

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