August 15: "The Country," Worrier, Out Loud

I'm a worrier.  Have been for as long as I can remember.  What do I worry about?  Everything.

I worry about my roof leaking during rainstorms.  My sewer backing up.  My phone crashing.  My doctor diagnosing with cancer.  My kids hating me.  My puppy getting fleas.  My wife going manic.  My boss at the library firing me.  My boss at the university firing me.  My tax return being audited.  My house getting infested by mice.  My house catching fire.

None of these fears are rational in any way.  I know that.  However, it doesn't strop my mind from imagining terrible things.

In today's poem Billy Collins has mouse worries . . . 

The Country

by: Billy Collins

I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice

might get into them and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed.

Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of the one unlikely mouse
padding along a cold water pipe

behind the floral wallpaper
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner,

the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam,
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time—

now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.
Who could fail to notice,

lit up in the blazing insulation,
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants
of what once was your house in the country?

I didn't worry all that much today.  Kept myself too busy to allow my mind to wander into that Forbidden Forest, so to speak.  And, tonight, I hosted a virtual open mic called Out Loud--something that I've been doing since my friend Helen (who started Out Loud) became very ill.  This coming Wednesday will make the two-year anniversary of Helen's passing.

Only one other person beside myself attended Out Loud tonight, and that was okay.  Really okay.  It allowed both of us to be very real for a couple hours.  The theme of the night was messiness--how every single human being on this planet leads a messy life.  We're all flawed, broken people doing the best we can each day.  No matter how "put together" individuals appears, chances are they are really fucked up in some way, including myself.

It was a good night, and when Out Loud was over, I felt better.  Not balanced, but better.  Sharing insecurities, sorrows, joys, hopes, and worries with another person is cathartic and healing.  Like seeing a beautiful sunset after a day of rain and wind and clouds.

Saint Marty's worry now is whether there are any Cosmic Brownies left in the house.