Be Still Sometimes
I have been reading Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. It’s a book about dying in America, and–for anyone dealing 
directly with this subject (and who among us is not?)–it is full of gems. One of them, in the chapter about his own father, is ODTAA syndrome:
One Damn Thing After Another.
Anyway, I went searching this evening for Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey,” so I could share it with my friend Therese (who is definitely suffering from ODTAA; you don’t have to be dying to do so). And I found this poem, which I thought Therese could use as well. It’s for Sarah, too.
Poem for someone who is juggling her life
This is a poem for someone
who is juggling her life.
Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.It needs repeating
over and over
to catch her attention
over and over
because someone juggling her life
finds it difficult to hear.Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.
Let it all fall sometimes.Rose Cook, from Notes From a Bright Field (Cultured Llama, 2013)
And did you even know that there is an International Juggler’s Association?