Transcript

I’m Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

Have you ever told what you thought was a funny story, yet struggled to get the timeline right? Or maybe you forgot who did what and when, and then had to double back? And when you lost grip, that’s when you sensed your audience becoming impatient, secretly wishing you would get to the punchline or point of the story, but then by the time you eased into your Aesop groove, the opportunity to charm vanished.

I never have that problem. Actually, I have that problem all the time, enough that I nearly enrolled in a storytelling class. I am afflicted with the idea that I must be perfect at everything, and thus, I go all out to achieve flawlessness: I read manuals, watch endless YouTube videos, enroll in on-the-fly courses. I measure my growth by my last failure. I am told this has to do with my astrological sign.

I live with Rilke’s famous line, “You must change your life,” in my ear on repeat, an earworm, as if something is less than stellar about who I am today. I move instinctively towards myself as though I were a massive project, believing I will someday, again in Rilke’s words, “burst like a star.” That this is how to be seen, to be loved, to be cherished. This quest has distorted my sense of what is important, sown constant dissatisfaction, and emotional states of being that pose health risks. Pursuing perfection has, at times, alienated me from those I hold dear. Not that I don’t love them or they me —- but that I get tunnel vision in seeking some heroic terminus.

Today’s poem invites me to consider the fact that I am fine just as I am, to take stock of blessings before me, to regard family, traditions, and cultural inheritances as stabilizing forces that settle my heart.

Refusing Rilke’s You must change your life
by Remica Bingham-Risher

6,000 books and counting. Large seashells
in plastic bins collected by your daughter.
A wooden spoon laced 
in scripture. Anniversary cards
for old loves, cards for housewarming, 
for gratitude, one ivory program 
with raised lettering. Ceramic
dishes older than you
carried from your mother’s house,
her mother’s house, whoever
made them useful first. Unlaced shoes,
beltless jackets, strapless gowns
and satin robes. A wooden chest carved
by hand telling a story not unlike
the years of photos kept inside.
Old concert leaflets, dental records, 
things you’ve been searching for 
and have misplaced—certificates,
ironclad agreements, signatures
that might save some if others
are hampered by death or waste.
A glasswork brooch painted over,
a safe deposit box with no key
or lock, a pair of baby socks
and toys full of dust, a statuette—
Black bride and groom—above
the dresser filled to the brim with us.

“Refusing Rilke's You must change your life” by Remica Bingham-Risher from ROOM SWEPT HOME © 2024 by Remica Bingham-Risher. Used by permission of Wesleyan University Press.