Life I love You

The phrase that keeps popping into my head of late, is “Life I love you.” Which you’ll probably immediately recognize but it took me a hot minute to place it in the Simon and Garfunkel song “Feelin’ Groovy.”

It’s a short one, ending:

“I got no deeds to do, no promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morningtime drop all its petals on me
Life, I love you, all is groovy”

I mean, I know that not all of life is groovy, but I’m going to trick my brain into believing that life will be groovy again, and that a lot of life really is still pretty groovy. As you know I’m a big fan of the so-called “ordinary life.” And I’m just going to make a concerted effort to dig down into that. Because, ongoingly, Life, I really do love you. Though yes, I also acknowledge that for some, ordinary life has cataclysmically changed and it’s hard and at times heartbreakingly brutal. Perhaps because of that it’s all the more precious. I love it even more.

Toward loving life more: I took a fave book off the shelf: Attention Equals Life by Andrew Epstein. He quotes the minimalist poem by Robert Creeley (found in his Collected) in his intro:

One day after another —
Perfect.
They all fit.

In another chapter, Epstein talks about the poet, Bernadette Mayer (known for her fascination with the quotidian). He quotes her: “I love you and daily life, what life isn’t daily?…What poetry isn’t everyday.” He talks about her desire to “dance with things as they are, her attempt to honour the vast scope and richness of the everyday and its “very small things.”

““Dance with things as they are.””

Epstein also quotes from Mayer’s often used poetry prompts: “Write household poems-about cooking, shopping, eating and sleeping.” And I don’t know about you, but I am HERE for those poems. So please write them!

I’ve also long had an interest in the poetry of work, and so when I saw that Krista Tippett shared an interview from 2010 with Mike Rose, it got me thinking again in old ways (by which I mean independent of the pandemic). Sure ordinary life is different, but it’s still ordinary life, we still work, and we need to look for the joy in that. From On Being: “I grew up a witness,” Mike Rose wrote, “to the intelligence of the waitress in motion, the reflective welder, the strategy of the guy on the assembly line. This then is something I know: the thought it takes to do physical work.”

Isn’t it uplifting when you run into someone who does the thing they do with an enthusiasm, a precision, a care? And when they do it with delight, it IS a delight. Wow!

There is a book of conversations I love between Hélène Cixous and Mireille Calle-Gruber where MCG talks about the vulnerability one needs to write, and “the fact that it takes a lot of love to write.” And I think, it’s like that with everything, really, whatever work you do. HC says, “In the end, love is very easy. When you love, it’s easy; all that is difficult is easy. Because you are continually paying yourself…” I’m sure some people wonder why the heck I do this blog for little fanfare or acclaim or cash damn dollars. I always come back to this answer, that I love it and so I am constantly paying myself. Don’t get me wrong I also love dollars, but I can’t think about them, I just have to think about what I love. I rather foolishly and brilliantly put most of my faith in doing what I love. I am continually paying myself.

So. Because I think my brain goes in circles and I fear I’ve said all the things I’ve said here in a previous post, I did a search and found an older post which I think might resonate, titled, “Stay Beautiful.” The post begins with this poem by Al Young:

Stay beautiful
but don’t stay down underground too long
Don’t turn into a mole
or a worm
or a root
or a stone

Come on out into the sunlight
Breathe in trees
Knock out mountains
Commune with snakes
& be the very hero of birds

Don’t forget to poke your head up
& blink
think
Walk all around
Swim upstream

Don’t forget to fly 

Also, you know, do your work, look for the poetry in your everyday life, but don’t forget to stay beautiful, stay groovy, dance where you are, babies, love what you love.

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And on to the fanfare portion of this post. This past week I had the great pleasure to be in the on-air company of the esteemed Grant Stovel at CKUA Radio. If you missed the convo, you can check it out here.

It’s so full of beautiful & poignant surprises, I hesitate to describe this book at all for fear of ruining the prospective reader's experience. Just...do yourself a favour & pick up @ShawnaLemay's astonishing new novel! And check out this @ckuaradio chat:https://t.co/9E4cqJoXmJ

— Grant Stovel (@GrantStovel) October 8, 2021

If you’d like your own copy of Everything Affects Everyone, there are some signed ones at Audreys in Edmonton and of course there are many more ways to order. I trust that you have the book ordering thing down pat.

October 11, 2021