No Things

An excerpt from Billy Collin's "No Things"

The leafless branches against the sky
will not save anyone from the infinity of death,
nor will the sugar bowl or the sugar spoon on the table.

So why bother with the checkerboard lighthouse?
Why waste time on the sparrow,
or the wildflowers along the roadside

when we should all be alone in our rooms
throwing ourselves against the wall of life
and opposite the wall of death,

the door locked behind us
as we hurl ourselves at the question of meaning,
and the enigma of our origins?

What good is the firefly,
the droplet running along the green leaf,
or even the bar of soap spinning around the bathtub

when ultimately we are meant to be
banging away on the mystery
as hard as we can and to hell with the neighbors?

banging away on nothingness itself,
some with their foreheads,
others with the maul of sense, the raised jawbone of poetry.

Man oh man I am loving me some Billy Collins right now. I read that poem yesterday when I was at Starbucks, and I was smiling so big by the end of the poem that I actually lifted the book to my face to cover my expression, long enough so that my expression faded to a size that my hand was capable of hiding.

Later, a group of young girls assembled nearby, and in my mind I played a little game called "Cheerleaders or Small Group?" A game not too different from another favorite, "Hipster or Homeless?" I was on the line about this particular group, but then they started reading aloud from an Anne Lammot book, each taking a page to read before passing it to the person on their left.

Small Group.

It reminded me of the days I spent sitting in a similar circle of similar girls but with way more conservative material--all fond memories, regardless. We were always reading relationship type stuff, namely, "When God Writes Your Love Story." No, I won't get all cynical on you in light of what's been written about me thus far. Cynical is boring and lazy. I just wanted to take you on an awkward detour to get to the next quote I read yesterday. I can't remember if it was from Dan Allender or from Elizabeth Gilbert (an unlikely pair of people to be confused, but I read from both of their books yesterday. And if you want me to be honest, the two really aren't that different from each other.) It's one of those things that will drive me crazy enough to actually re-read both books, just so I can find one quote. I've probably re-read Catcher in the Rye a dozen times, on that basis alone. I know the quote I'm looking for is on the left-hand side of the page. And that if you broke the words up into fifths, it'd be the fourth fifth. And part of the sentence is in italics.

Point is, it told me this: it's much better to imperfectly be yourself than to perfectly be who you aren't.