TRANSCRIPT

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

I have always been intrigued by the concept of reincarnation. Being intrigued by it doesn’t mean I believe in it, necessarily—it just means I find it fascinating. 

What interests me about reincarnation is that it’s about transformation and possibility. Reincarnation suggests, “Maybe this isn’t your one shot,” or, to borrow the poet Mary Oliver’s words, maybe this isn’t “your one wild and precious life” after all. Maybe there will be other lives you’ll get to live, other chances. Maybe you’ve already lived many lives, and this isn’t your first rodeo! 

This excites me, because it ignites my imagination. What might I have experienced already that I can’t recall in our conventional understanding of memory? Where might I have lived, and as whom—or what? And what might I do or be next? 

Reincarnation also suggests we have more to learn. Maybe we keep coming back—as different beings, in different forms—to learn the lessons we have not mastered yet. I wonder what I still have to learn, and how I will be taught these lessons. I wonder if I could achieve that here, in this body, in this lifetime. If not, perhaps there will be another opportunity for me. 

I don’t have any reason to believe in reincarnation—any evidence for it—but I also don’t have any reason not to believe it’s possible. I remain someone who is open-minded but unsure when it comes to most existential and spiritual matters. I don’t know, and I’m fairly comfortable with not knowing. It’s enough for me to ask “What if?” and to wonder about different possibilities. The space of not knowing is a space full of potential. It’s a space that imagination can fill. 

Today’s poem charmed me immediately with its imagination and its restraint. It’s a poem that makes me ask, “What if?” It’s also a poem I want to read again as soon as I finish it.

Paperweight
by Ryan Teitman

Every  few  months  or  so,  I  turn  into  a  rock.  First,  my  joints  stiffen  as  if 
there’s weather coming.  Then, I get the urge to read some doorstop novel. 
Finally,  I  become  a  rock.  A  smallish  one,  usually.  My  wife  isn’t  surprised 
anymore.  She picks me  up from the kitchen  floor or the driveway  and sets 
me on her  desk as  a paperweight.  It’s nice to  have  a singular purpose.  I’m 
glad  I  don’t  become  a  brick,  or,   God  forbid,  a  stone.  When  I’m  a  rock,  I
appreciate  so many things  I  don’t  otherwise notice.  Silence so intricate  it 
sounds   like   music.   A   breeze   moving    through   the   room  like   a  dancer 
stretching  her   limbs.   Eventually,   after  a  few  days  or weeks,  I become  a 
person  again.  I  go back  to reading my book;  I spend the weekend cleaning 
leaves  from  the   gutters.   But   at   night,  when  my  wife  is  asleep,  I  sneak 
downstairs  and  set  my  hand  atop  a  stack  of  mail.  I wait there,  as still as 
possible, until sunrise. I don’t want to lose my touch.

"Paperweight" by Ryan Teitman. Used by permission of the poet.