I’m reading new poems and from my memoir, You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know, on January 31st, a Tuesday evening, at 7 pm in Winants Auditorium, Graves Hall, on the Hope College campus. My colleague David Cho will be reading his poetry. I’m really looking forward to this.

Heather,

They all ask me about it during my residency interviews; about my writing, about how I wrote a book in college. They ask me how many pages it was, as if they don’t believe me. I tell them one-hundred and twenty something. My chapbook, the one that I bound and that’s sitting on my desk next to books about Emergency Medicine and board study guides. They all say “oh!” I’m validated.

I put it on my application, in one line under hobbies sandwiched between “hiking” and “cycling.” They ask me about it at Michigan, at Indiana and in North Carolina where the assistant program director tells me of her love for Hemingway and the Nick Adams stories and I smile and tell her to read Abigail Thomas. I tell them about you, about prosopagnosia and “Die, Demons, Die” and then feel like something is missing. Because I don’t write much, I don’t blog anymore and the last book I read was titled “The ICU Book.”

I never realized how good your class was, how good your art was, and how amazing you were until now. I miss those twelve hard seats and noisy desks. I miss the beers with Charlie and Peter and all the wine I drank to find the whiskey. I am about to board my plane, with “What is the What” in my bag and a commitment to write every day for the next three weeks.

I miss it. I miss you.

Thank you.

A.S.

 Everyone is busy.  Everyone is overwhelmed. Except my friend Amelia. Amelia is living right. She is focused on peacocks, presents, her brother, and the particular way the rubber on her sneaker is peeling off, in a very alive way, how the shoe is kind of developing more and more personality every day.

My students were complaining last week about how busy they are—finals! Papers! Projects. Everything due at once. Roommate implosions, serious stuff happening on campus. It’s all real. They do have things to do before the end of next week. I felt really guilty and thought about cancelling the Bones essay. I stayed strong, though. And then, when I was walking out of class, I heard two of my students, just behind me in the hall. K said, “So, you going to the concert tonight?” And J said, “Heck ya, I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

Not that busy.

I notice a pattern of (adult) people opening many or most conversations with “How are you?” and the response we give is so often “Good–busy!”  Like one word with a hitch in the middle, good-busy.  I feel this pattern denies something relational, something really important. I think we can so easily get into a pattern of using “busyness” or “swamped-ness” to keep from making a deep, close, or meaningful connection with the other person before us.  I noticed this in myself, and I got so sick of myself! It was like I was bragging about my importance in the world. I’m so busy = I’m so vital to the world!

So, some years ago, I made a vow to stop talking about the length of my to-do list.  It seemed kind of super ego-y and selfish and shuttered.  I felt I wasn’t really connecting (or being connected to) in a way that was very meaningful. I felt I was using The Great Big Important To Do List as a placeholder for connection.

The other thing I noticed around this same time was we all say “this is a particularly busy period in my life.”  R Carlson has this on one of his tapes. People say this ALL THE TIME!  I noticed it in myself and my colleagues.  The summer is so busy, too short. The opening of the semester–so intense! Midterms, so intense! Finals, now so intense!  Book orders!  It’s always something. Always. There is always family stuff, personal stuff, work stuff. 

And, like my students, I notice in the evening, my own happy somewhat plump self, watching Justified and Modern Family, eating frozen cherries, my hot water bottle squirming on my belly, like a pet.

How busy?

So, I made a vow to try to talk about, and listen for, what’s more meaningful (to me).  I am sure my friends would roll their eyes at this—I’m probably the biggest complainer of all.  But I am, believe it or not, actively trying to talk about, in conversation, anything but the To Do list. It’s boring, off-putting, un-changing, and unkind. (My list. In my opinion. I will listen to your list.)

I want to talk about faith, practice, punctuation, books, art, nature, friendship. The way the clouds say in the sky today, looking cold, serene, and thinky. All the dreams I keep having about moving into an apartment. I want to talk about emotions.  I want to talk about that list you made at the department retreat—where you wrote down your goals. I want to read the notes you took. I want to analyzing difficult things with friends, and connect around matters of the heart and mind and soul.  

When we first start dating, we’re all super-interested and interesting.  We never complain about our to do list then!  We’re in the world, fascinated by everything. I know we can’t sustain that level engagement.  But it’s my goal. That we engage with each other with deep respect and devotion.  That we not become roommates or swamp partners! That we each try to create a lovely, engaging space around ourselves, as we did when first dating, a space the other person can’t wait to be in.   

That’s what I want.  Every day a first date.