Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

My very first worry in life was twelve-year-old Billy Mack. His father purchased a Rottweiler, a dog that he trained to be as mean as the punks who bullied Billy. He taunted my little brother and me on our way to school every day. We were never sure when Billy would run out with his beast of a dog, who barked and bared his teeth as though he were the hound of Hades himself.

Most mornings, we ran by his house, terrified. If my brother didn’t securely zip up his book bag, his sandwich, his Cheez-Its, and his books went flying everywhere. Although it took us longer, we found a route that avoided facing off with a snarling beast. That’s all it took, well, that and a big stick I carried just in case.

Many worries followed. After a childhood of observing my parents’ anxieties, mostly around bills, I eventually learned to embrace uncertainty. Now, I almost never worry about anything, from missing a flight to talking to strangers. No doubt, I’ve faced challenges. My keep-it-chill attitude was hard-won. In many instances, the future seemed unsure: I had no idea how I was going to finance my children’s education. The political landscape did not simply reflect my values and beliefs. Paycheck-to-paycheck living made me vulnerable to medical emergencies. After living through all manner of personal and communal tribulations, I’ve come to believe things will work themselves out.

Yet, it’s not that the worries have gone away. Just like in my early days, I’ve learned to find ways to ease the burdens and uneasiness of living. Of course, I’m not trying to find a fully anxiety-free existence; it’s good to have a barking dog occasionally at one’s heels. I just try to walk past it when I need to.

Today’s poem points comically to the omnipresence of worry, how it's rooted in the soil of our existence.

Worry (the Dybbuk)
by Anthony Immergluck

I have a worry mother and
I have a worry father and
once they shared a worry and
my own worry a sprout in
this worry dirt, bullied by 
the worry weeds, spoiled by
the worry sun and rain and
I the runt among a litter of
suckling worries and the 
worry is the current and 
we are its conductors and
the worry is the currency we
interchange on holidays and 
the worry is the ribbon of
rot running deep in the
center of a chestnut and
my worry and another
worry said I do to worry and
we warm our tea with
worry and we wonder if 
there ever was and ever
could be a home with
no worry chewing through
the attic and we wonder how
a shoulder might shoulder un-
burdened by this dybbuk and
I worry that were we to
land on an island without
worry our worries would
starve or worse, survive
on each other’s meat and
I worry that the worry is
the best of us after all
I only ever held a worry
hand and I only ever ate
a worry pastry and I don’t 
know why I told a worry
child not to worry when
surely the trick is to give
the worry a name and then
to call it again and again.

"Worry (The Dybbuk)" by Anthony Immergluck. Used by permission of the poet.