Garden Variety

There's nothing quite like worry, is there? I spent today doing laundry in the company of two fine dogs, who, like their fellows, have a wonderful and often-noted way of reminding you not to worry. They can fear; they can even panic; but the future does not cause them to do so.

I remember teaching Burns's "To a Mouse," from which we get the lines about the best laid plans of mice and men going often agley. As I recall, the last lines involve the farmer telling the mouse (whose home he's just destroyed, which means the mouse is going to freeze to death because it's almost winter) that, actually, the mouse has it pretty good after all, because he only has to deal with the present. I guess he thinks the mouse won't or can't realize that it's doomed. The poor farmer, by contrast, says he casts his eye backward on a past full of "prospects drear / And forward, though I canna see / I guess an' fear." (I'm using quotes even though I'm not sure the quote is quite right.)

How about that? Are we at our most human when we worry?


While we're talking poets, I think Eliot had a neat idea about this character Tiresias. According to the myths (I think mostly Ovid?), Tiresias had been turned into a woman, and then back into a man. If memory serves, the process involved hitting a magic snake with a stick (obviously). As a result, he was an authority, I guess the only absolute authority, on gender-war-type issues. I imagine if he were around today he would have a syndicated advice column. Things turn ugly one day when the gods are having a disagreement about who enjoys sex more, men or women. They call Tiresias up, naturally, and he says that women enjoy it more, thereby ending the debate for eternity and really pissing off Hera, who blinds him. Zeus feels bad and gives him the "gift" of prophecy as a sort of consolation prize.

Okay so that's the back story. Eliot uses this phrase "foresuffer all" that has stuck with me. Tiresias can see everything in the future, but nothing in the present. And he can feel everything he sees, especially men and women trying to understand each other, from both feminine and masculine perspectives. So, Tiresias has already experienced every fight you have ever had (or will ever have) with your significant other... and from both sides. Predictably, he's not a very happy guy in the poem.

Tiresias isn't a worrier - he is suffering because of what he knows is going to happen, which I guess is worse than worrying, but on the other hand doesn't involve this horrifying uncertainty. They have this common element of foresuffering... which seems so totally unnecessary. You're going to have to suffer for real when the future becomes the present. Why suffer in advance, too? And then, you remember that unlike Tiresias you're not even sure that the thing you're worrying about is going to happen at all. In fact, in your more lucid moments, you know most of your worries won't ever happen. So you're really foresuffering for no reason at all, which makes you mad at yourself. And your dog is staring at you this whole time with utter incomprehension.


Abbie's birthday is tomorrow. I've mentioned my issues with time, and so anniversaries and things make me feel a little lost. And I reject the idea that this day ought to be more special than the others, because why shouldn't the others be just as good? But of course that doesn't really work. So, I spend many days and weeks preparing, which is mostly great, but inevitably involves worrying that the whole happy-memory-manufacturing-process will fail in any number of ways, including just because I want it not to.

Worry is very human but also lame. Worrying about how much you worry? Clearly uber-lame. Birthdays rule the school and Abbie's greatness and patience will conquer all, but I'll still have to remind myself to take a deep breath every once in a while. Reading poetry makes blog posts longer but not necessarily better. Stuffing all of your conclusions into a single final paragraph is strangely satisfying.

Love and peace, and please suggest some songwriting locations for the Project, which starts Saturday.


The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.
-Prospero