Here is a little trick that has been helping my brain lately.

When I start to feel brittle, or down, or otherwise uncongenial, which honestly happens way more than I would like, I try to remember to begin one sentence, “I hope…” and another, “I love…” You can do this in your preferred order.

I realized that this was a cool thing to do because there are two Twitter accounts that do this and immediately I read what they have to say and feel better. Matthew Burnside often begins a Tweet with “I hope” and often Tweets, “i hope u get some good news tomorrow.” Alex Dimitrov (who has a book of poetry titled Love and Other Poems), writes his “endless poem” on Twitter beginning each Tweet “I love…” As soon as I read one of these I love Tweets I also feel better. It gets me thinking about what I love, what I hope for others, and maybe myself.

So I’m going to be that author and quote myself. From my book Asking (in the section of writing prompt poems):

What I Love

by Shawna Lemay

– after lines by Fanny Howe,
I won’t be able to write from the grave / so let me tell you what I love.

I love drab birds and in winter I love the trees, sugar frosted.
Coffee and milk. Moss in the forest, the cool shady spots where it grows.
Morning light. Pink-apricot rose petals.
Daughter’s smile. So many poems.
Leather sandals. Pale blue sky. Suitcases. Home.
The chair in my garden where I can sit and no one can see me.
Daydreaming and night dreaming —

and poem dreaming.

And so the poem that inspired this poem by Fanny Howe is in her Selected Poems:

I won't be able to write from the grave
so let me tell you what I love:
oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter,
cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace,
the children nearby, poems and songs,
a friend sleeping in my bed —

and the short northern nights.

So if I were to write a poem in this vein, and I haven’t written a poem in years really, I’d go back and forth between hope and love.

I hope you find some poetry in your day.

I love light on a bowl of colourful dried flowers.

I hope you play that song you really like three times in a row.

I love looking at stacks of books and reading their titles.

But you know, it’s possible that Jason Isbell got this idea down in a song. I hope you like it. I know I love it.

Maybe it sounds morbid, but you know Fanny Howe was correct. I won’t be able to tell you what I love when I’m gone. What if everyone had a list of everything they loved through their life and we could read that out at their memorial? It’s not that far from the idea of a gratitude journal. Maybe you could write an “I hope, I love” kind of journal. Send good thoughts out into the universe, and also just remember what you love.

Am I onto something? Tell me I’m onto something.

January 19, 2022