My father standing at the rehab center’s exercise bar after he’d had his knee replaced. How he stood longer each day than he had the previous day.
My friends the poets. How little Americans care about poetry. How little money there is to be made. How we write anyway. How we send our poems to magazines. How we log pages of rejections.
My friends the musicians who make their own careers: weeks on the road playing shows, sleeping on couches, recording their own albums, being their own managers. My friends the artists, the actors, the activists.
My brother, who packs up his life and moves to new countries because the work is better abroad, because abroad he is compensated fairly.
My friends who have suffered terrible losses. How gray the world can look, how marked by loss. How they get out of bed anyway, make travel plans, mail loving packages, savor meals with friends, laugh heartily.
My partner, mired in tenure bullshit. How he hasn’t quit fighting. How he keeps insisting on the high road.
My younger self who fought through pain and experimental treatments to walk the hallways at school, to laugh with friends on the weekend.
It’s a cold, rainy, windy day in Marquette, the winter on its way. The world feels a little too much, a little too demanding, pulling me in too many directions. I’m not giving anyone enough.
And maybe sometimes being brave is overrated—putting on a good face when you want to curl in bed and watch TV. And maybe sometimes that is also being brave: gathering your resources for another day’s fight.
Planet of the Blind 