Try Softer

photo by Brad Peacock

Try Softer

Honor wherever you are,

whether the door to your life

has blown off its hinges,

or you find the simplest joy

sitting in a patch of winter sun

on that corner of the carpet

where you love to stretch.

Try softer, not harder—

giving yourself a safe place

to land your attention, resting

in this threshold moment

through which wind, snow

and light all enter alike.

I have been down with a terrible cold for the past few weeks, so I’ve had many chances to practice the central lesson of this poem, holding my life with much more softness than usual. Often, my poems will bloom out of a first line whose message I desperately need, and this one came out of the blue, in a voice that did not sound entirely like my own at first. “Honor wherever you are” is perhaps another way of saying that we must name and accept—even embrace, if we can—the river of feeling that flows through us right now. After days of struggling against my sickness, wanting to believe it would only be a mild case of the flu, I finally had to surrender to the messy fullness of the illness, honoring the fact that I could no longer work out or take the long walks with my husband that I love; I could no longer shop for groceries or walk down to the mailbox without feeling winded. It wasn’t until I gave in and accepted these new limitations that I began to feel a slight lift. I realized then just how hard I’d been trying not to be sick, not to be vulnerable, in need of help. In a world that values hardness and constant productivity, I believe we are each called to bring more tenderness to all of our interactions, especially in how we treat ourselves. I think of what the poet Jane Hirshfield has said: “Tenderness does not choose its own uses. It goes out to everything equally.” When we commit to “trying softer,” a gentler form of attention can’t help but spread out, touching every person and object we encounter. We become a kind of threshold, letting it all in, and letting it all out, hopefully with the same kindness we have shown ourselves.

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: What would it mean for you to “honor wherever you are?” You might write that phrase at the top of the page, and see what images or memories come to you to describe such a difficult but necessary openness toward the world.

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