Bryn Brakeley

WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
 love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
© Mary Oliver

I was just introduced to that poem today. I resonate with it so much. I think most of the women I know would concur with the sentiment. Whatever the internal struggle the poem represents for the audience, Mary Oliver does a fantastic job describing three incurable bouts of guilt we all know too well.

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Is such a demanding but gentle instruction. Being aware of our primal, fearful, childlike side makes us truthful to our instincts.

“Meanwhile the world goes on.” Really encapsulates existentialism to me. I feel an air of fear, perhaps depression, or even a lingering jealousy in this line. Grief for the human experience itself, which will inevitably get left behind. When we will cease to exist, and long after we will have passed on.

Perhaps there is also joy in the line. Like a coin, this grief has two sides to feel and gaze upon. Reflection can make me smile and cry in the same breathe.

Perhaps her use of “home,” when referring to the destination of the geese, is intentional personification. It further expands on her envy. As we age, this desire to go home is so prevalent. As someone who no longer has a “childhood home” and who’s grandparent’s once sufficient substitute is now owned by strangers, it is a feeling that has often consumed me. Not homeless in the colloquial sense of the meaning, of course I am grateful to have a roof over my head. Homeless in the sense that there has never been a true place for my home in my mind. If someone were to ask, perhaps I would deliver an address. Nearby towns may help with approximate coordinates, association to sports teams can spark someone’s memory of a place they drive through unknowingly. Climate may describe the condition, the experience of life in the general vicinity.

I still find it a challenge to say where I am from. It often leads to an explanation of where I am “from”. More accurately, the places that have shaped the woman I am today, I suppose. Do I make it simple and say, “Texas”? And when they follow up asking for a city, what do I say? Most recently, San Marcos. It’s outside of Austin. Like between San Antonio and Austin. Like half an hour depending on traffic. Yes the traffic is usually very bad. It is because of the highway. Yes what a nightmare.

Most importantly, Lubbock? Like a university is there, Texas Tech University. I went to undergraduate school there. Yes it is very isolated. No I would not move back. I also grew up in Lubbock. No not high school. I moved there when my parents were divorced. I was three. Yes it’s sad but he has dementia now, so it’s literally fine. We all cope differently I guess. I am more forgiving of someone who has lost their memory than someone who abandons four children, shocking I am sure.

Where I was born, Dallas? No I don’t really remember. I don’t really like Dallas. No good memories in or around Dallas.

Where did I go to high school, North Richland Hills? Birdville High School, you probably don’t know it. It’s outside of Fort Worth. Sure, by Grapevine.

I left my whole life behind. But the thing about my life, is that it happens where I go, not where my past stays. My past self is not somewhere in Texas just waiting around for me. She is right here, along for the ride. I knew I was capable of this, but did I know if I could accomplish it? Certainly not.

I am glad I did. I feel that I have escaped something.