Monday, Monday.

Has it seemed to anyone else like it has been one long Monday for the last two weeks? To date, I have heard from two friends with partners with cancer, one friend with a relative going into hospice, two friends whose parent has died, and two buddies whose finances have gone up in smoke, due to the completely unhinged world financial situation. Friends are making decisions about their health, about moving, and finding jobs; are scrambling to keep businesses open, and yet they are talking, still taking the time to say, “I’m still here, trying to deal, how are you?”

That they deal so gracefully with their trauma and stress makes me slightly ashamed of my mental histrionics. When I read this poem, I thought of them, my very brave friends:

Love Poem With Toast

by Miller Williams

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

(Read the rest of this poem here.)

Dear friends, I wish you magic, for all the things you have wanted, for all the things you’ve done to keep something from happening, or to make things happen. I wish you answers and course corrections and with the wave of a wand — or the whisper of prayers — results. May you all have what you need.