Today’s episode is guest hosted by Maggie Smith.

Transcript

I’m Maggie Smith and this is The Slowdown.

Years ago, during a time of intense grief and stress, my therapist said something to me, something that I’ve carried ever since. She said, “You can’t think your way out of this. You need to find ways to process the stress in your body, not just in your mind.”

I remember she asked if I’d ever screamed into a pillow. I laughed. Would that actually help? But I understood what she was suggesting: I needed a physical release, a way to offload the stress I was carrying. I started running, and, lo and behold, it helped. I felt better: clearer, more focused, less harried. I slept better.

Part of what I’ve continued to do for my mental health is take care of my physical body. I run or walk nearly every morning, before the day has a chance to get at me. Before the emails, and the phone calls, and the meetings.

I like breathing the fresh air and feeling the sun on my skin. I like seeing my neighbors pushing their children in strollers or walking their dogs. I like paying attention to my surroundings: leaf prints on the sidewalk, squirrels burying or digging up acorns, clouds sailing by like ships on a windy day. Sensory experience grounds me. It gets me back into my body and out of my head.

Today’s poem is an ode, a poem of praise or celebration. It reminds me that attention is a form of love. If you love the world, give it the gift of your attention. Don’t be afraid to get up close, to look deeper, to go inside. To reach out and touch, to smell, to engage your senses. We’re only here on this planet for a short time. We might as well soak up every last bit.

Wind Ode
by Sharon Olds

I saw the water, ruffled like a duck,
as if its ruffles arose from within.
I saw clouds, scudding across 
as if by their own will. I sat here,
over the pond, and saw its fierce
gooseflesh and its rough chop
as if it were shivering. I did not know you, 
I looked right through you. And then, one summer 
day, Wild Goose was in nine moods
at once, and I went down to it,
and into it up to my lower eyelids, and I 
saw a row of fine lines
rushing toward me, then another row
crosshatching it, rushing, then a veil of dots swift
in, like a hat-veil-sized spirit, I saw you, 
it was you, and there were many of you, I sank
underwater, and looked up, 
and saw your strokes indent the surface.
Could we trace them back, these hachures and gravures,
to the Coriolis force caused by the 
spinning of the earth? Who is the mother
of the wind, who is its father? O ancestor,
O child of heat and cold, wild
original scribbler! 

"Wind Ode” by Sharon Olds from ODES © 2016 Sharon Olds. Used by permission of Penguin Random House.