“Little Bear,” I incant in the quiet of the bookstore or my wind-whipped walk home, “the world is not as we would wish it. And what we ask of you is unfair: to come in, and not only survive, but love it, as if you had made it yourself.” Some remnant of a poem I’ve been writing (I don’t write poetry) to my future child, or to my inner child; an invitation to be born into a calamitous world or an incantation to help myself live through it. In this annual period peppered with people’s announcements of resolutions and achievements like gnats flying around your timeline, it’s tempting to shout, “I survived; and I will survive” into the void and leave it at that. But that doesn’t quite feel like the whole story. We expect more from life than its continuation. The world owes us more, and the other way around.
How to Rise Up Like New Bread
How to Rise Up Like New Bread
How to Rise Up Like New Bread
“Little Bear,” I incant in the quiet of the bookstore or my wind-whipped walk home, “the world is not as we would wish it. And what we ask of you is unfair: to come in, and not only survive, but love it, as if you had made it yourself.” Some remnant of a poem I’ve been writing (I don’t write poetry) to my future child, or to my inner child; an invitation to be born into a calamitous world or an incantation to help myself live through it. In this annual period peppered with people’s announcements of resolutions and achievements like gnats flying around your timeline, it’s tempting to shout, “I survived; and I will survive” into the void and leave it at that. But that doesn’t quite feel like the whole story. We expect more from life than its continuation. The world owes us more, and the other way around.