Nat

It amazes me when the right book comes to me just when I need it. Last week a friend recommended Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat. Pray. Love. I had read the reviews and walked by it in bookstores for months, thinking that I would probably like it, but when I received the recommendation last week, I was particularly desperate for advice about reaching out to God.

For those of you who haven’t read it–and I strongly recommend that you do–Gilbert opens the book sobbing on the floor of her bathroom, desperate for guidance about whether to leave her marriage. She asks God for help, and receives a clear answer back. The answer is, “Go to bed, Elizabeth,” and what she writes about this is that she recognizes it as wisdom. “True wisdom,” Gilbert writes, “gives the only possible answer at any given moment” (p. 16).

It’s a great definition. Typically I expect that real insight will allow me to solve all of my problems at once. I know this is ridiculous when I am being rational, but suffering has a way of making me want to know everything all at once. Gilbert’s reminder that we only need to know the best next step strikes me as great advice, both because we can only take one step at a time, and also because it reminds us to narrow our focus on a problem to the tiny portion of it that we can handle right away.

Brilliant. (Plus, the rest of the book is funny and charming.)

The Academy of American Poets, at poets.org, sponsors National Poetry Month every April. If you go to their web site, you can subscribe to receive a poem each day this month by email.

I have it sent to my work email account, and I’m finding, just two days in, that the arrival of the day’s poem reconnects me with my love of language and my appreciation for a life outside of work. Another of the benefits of the subscription is the additional links that each mail message includes.

Yesterday’s took me to a list of past Poets Laureate of the US Library of Congress. Louise Gluck, one of my absolute favorite poets, was listed, and it linked to one of her poem’s from last year’s book “Averno.” The poem “A Myth of Devotion” reminded me that I love the way Gluck navigates longing and the imperfection of desire throughout this entire book.

Poetry is perfect for me in April. The pleasure of language is more reliable than spring in New England. I never used to read poetry, but this web site, and the great work of the Academy of American Poets really brought it back into my life.