TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

My friends have saved my life, time and time again. That’s not hyperbole. I mean it. You can save someone’s life by applying pressure to a wound or performing CPR, but you can also save someone’s life by loving them. By just BEING with them so they’re not alone. You can save someone’s life by giving them a sense of belonging and hope. Solid friendships can do that. 

During a difficult time in my life, one friend and I would regularly go out dancing and to see live music together; another friend and I would roller skate and have happy hours on her front porch. When my marriage ended and I felt squeezed financially, my friend Victoria in LA hired me to teach. I couldn’t afford to take my kids on a vacation that summer, but my friend Lisa in Chicago said, “Come visit and bring the kids, and you can all stay at our house.” That’s now become an annual tradition we all look forward to.

Friends also recommended doctors, lawyers, therapists, financial advisors, tax preparers, contractors, handymen, and babysitters. As a newly single mom who was trying to juggle a lot, with little free time, this logistical help was invaluable.

When I lost my joy, my generous friends were there. It can be so hard to accept help from others, especially if you pride yourself on being self-sufficient, but I took them up on their offers of meals, and company, and advice. And I’m so glad I did, because these things were all lifesaving. All of these things, in their own ways, helped me close some wounds. All, in their own ways, restarted my heart. 

Today’s poem is a love letter to lifesaving friendships. Maybe it will make you think of a person—or people—in your life who showed up exactly when you needed them. Maybe it will inspire you to be that person for someone else.

Different Kinds of Sadness
by Jenny Molberg

to E.A.H.

Sometimes a friend can save your life,
as when you drove in from Albuquerque

the day I left the man I thought would kill me.
We went to the train station and sat

among the Beaux Arts pediments and bas-reliefs
having a cocktail called the Manhattan, Kansas.

You brought a package of fresh tortillas,
some butter, some cheese—we’ll survive,

the we a sort of kindness, a kind of sadness.
The drinks were garnished

with shriveled figs instead of maraschinos,
which was a different kind of sadness.

The station was built in 1914
and no one who can remember 1914 is left.

Your eyes began to time-travel
behind your white-rimmed glasses

and I knew you were thinking about your son.
The lives we have chosen not to live

are enough to fill the whole day’s train
with ghosts and ghosts and ghosts.

But there are also people
who have known you forever,

which is yet another kind of sadness
because you’ve only just met.

“Different Kinds of Sadness” by Jenny Molberg from REFUSAL © 2020 Jenny Molberg. Used by permission of Louisiana State University Press.