Thursday, January 25, 2007

Relating to Poetry

This was the poem today on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac:

"understudy"

She just wants an understudy, a body
double for the days when she does
not feel like appearing in any of the roles
she has assumed and/or been assigned.
She places an ad in the paper. Wanted:
one wife, mother, daughter, neighbor,
friend. Live-in OK. Own car necessary.
No lines to memorize; everything ad-
libbed. No days off.

-- Beverly Rollwagen


It was a fitting poem for today because

I, too, wish I had an understudy:
Someone to come to my job so I could stay in bed.
Someone to carry out the list of tedious tasks I have to do so I could take a nap.
Someone to be overwhelmed in my place at the prospect of motherhood
Someone to make our dinner and wash the resulting dishes so I could just put my feet up.
Someone to take over the weight of the future so I didn’t have to carry it.

But it’s not that I don’t enjoy my role.
I like where I am, I do --
I am the lucky star of my own story.
I just wish sometimes that I had an understudy so I could take a break and watch from the wings.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Somedays I feel like that too, wanting an understudy. What a great idea. Right now I only wish I could breath some clean air. Day 14 in a row of inversion and below freezing temperature. On a more positive note, that baby sure is growing up, even bigger than Tom Thumb now. Have a great day!
Love,
Dad

Lizardbreath McGee said...

Very poignant, Lindsay. And true, too. I know I've felt like that before, and I'm guessing most of us have at one time or another.

"Watch from the wings" - Beautiful! It makes me wonder too: what would we think of our own lives if we could see them from an outside perspective?