TRANSCRIPT

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

Sometimes the tiniest good thing happens, and it manages to salvage an entire terrible day. That’s been my experience, anyway. When I’m overwhelmed or stressed or sad, and I need more peace and ease in my life, it’s tempting to start thinking about all the big changes that need to occur: changes in work schedule, or parenting strategies, or relationships.

I think we’ve all done some version of this at some time in our lives: thought that if only we had a different job, or a different spouse, or lived someplace else, that life would be better. The big shift would make everything okay. And let’s be honest, sometimes that’s true. Sometimes we’re working a job we dislike, or we’re in a toxic relationship that actively depletes us instead of filling us up. Big changes are sometimes necessary.

I know this. And yet, often little shifts make a big difference. Slight recalibrations. Small acts of self-care. Subtle moves instead of seismic ones.

Self-care is a buzzword these days, but it’s genuinely important. Even small acts of self-care add up and can change how we move through the world. When we take care of ourselves, we behave differently at work, with our families. In this sense, taking care of yourself, even in small ways, is taking care of your life — and the other people in it.

That small act of self-care might be taking a bath, or going for a walk, or buying yourself a treat. It might be listening to music, or napping, or gardening, or drawing. Something that makes you feel tended to. Something that lights you up or relaxes you, so that you can go through the rest of your day with a little burst of energy or some new perspective.

Sometimes, as we see in today’s poem, even when things are difficult, even just the smallest bit of sweetness helps.

Guava Jelly
by Quinn Franzen

Everyone has a high tolerance for pain until pain 
comes along. 

Then you’re flopped in the pasta aisle.
Then you’re shouting about god’s threshing floor.

You’re just a little bird.
By you I mean me.

A great life would be good, wouldn’t it?
Like an old old painting. 

The compass unglued, my prayers 
are all for pleasure.

I would like to be a man drinking beer.
This seems achievable. 

This morning I ate one spoonful of lilikoi butter 
and one spoonful of guava jelly.

Did you also briefly think you could live on air?
As a child I wished to be struck.

Asked, once.

I wished a parent could know me 
well enough to hate me.

When the baby grows up I want to be smoke.
Am I doing this right?

I mean I want. To be smote.

The landscape burns and the livestock continue
churning into whitecaps.

But this morning I ate one spoonful of lilikoi butter 
and one spoonful of guava jelly.

"Guava Jelly" by Quinn Franzen. Used by permission of the poet.