Anne Coray is an Alaskan, and in this beautiful meditation on the stillness of nature she shows us how closely she’s studied something that others might simply step over. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

The Art of Being

The fern in the rain breathes the silver message.

Stay, lie low. Play your dark reeds

and relearn the beauty of absorption.

There is nothing beyond the rotten log

covered with leaves and needles.

Forget the light emerging with its golden wick.

Raise your face to the water-laden frond.

A thousand blossoms will fall into your arms.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Anne Coray from her most recent book of poetry, A Measure’s Hush, Boreal Books, 2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Anne Coray and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

For a long time, I’ve known that I reveal different aspects of myself to different people. There are certain acceptable activities and topics of conversation with each group of friends and family, certain facets of my personality, likes and dislikes, that appear and disappear as needed. Like a chameleon changing colors to blend into her surroundings, I’ve become good at fitting in. Only a very few get to see most of me, and possibly no one has ever seen all of me, even my husband of 24 years. I don’t go so far as to do or say things I don’t believe in, but I keep in hiding aspects of myself I feel either would not be interesting to the other person or that might make them think less of me—not because I think whatever-it-is is boring or unacceptable, but because I think the other person does.

There are times when this is acceptable social behavior. Every single person does not need to know every single thing about me. But what if I’m only hiding myself because I want people to like me? How can people like me if they don’t know me? I have to accept that if I allow others to see me, all of me, some of them won’t like me. But some of them will, and it’s much better to have people like you for who you are than to try to change who you are so they will like you. This sounds to me like a lesson I should have learned long ago—but somehow it has escaped my notice until now.  Why now? Because of something that “asked” to be put on my vision board for 2012:

 I’m not sure yet what this will mean for me. I think it might mean taking more chances in my writing life, figuring out what I want and asking for it instead of just making do, not waiting for something to happen but taking charge and making it happen. Guarding my inner life a little less closely.

All my chameleon-like behavior sometimes leaves me wondering what, exactly, I do want or believe. Like La Rochefoucauld says, too much disguising can cut me off from an understanding of my true self. In some ways, I am still figuring out who I am. There are many things I’m still learning, many points of view I’d like to understand. 

Writing for this blog has helped me expose more of myself to the world than I would have felt comfortable doing in the past, even though, of course, it doesn’t express all of me, either. It has helped me think through and express some of my beliefs and opinions—sometimes opinions I didn’t know I had or had not yet put into words. I expect I’ll continue to write my way out of hiding because that’s just something that I do. (Thank you for coming along on the journey!)

Do you hide parts of yourself? What is the cost and what are the benefits of hiding?

I’ve been wanting to take a walk on the nature trail in my neighborhood with my camera for a long time. Usually when I’m on this trail, which winds for about four miles around my subdivision, I’m walking briskly for exercise and I don’t have the camera with me when something appealing comes into view. Yesterday, in the spirit of nurturing myself, I took half an hour to wander the trail near my house.

 A little breeze kept it from being too warm for comfort, but it was definitely warm enough for the shorts I was wearing. So much for winter. I turned right out of my back gate, and came to a large retention pond, now dry because of an ongoing drought, and the architectural skeleton of a tree. Every time I walk past this tree I think it would make a good line drawing. I took its picture, and maybe next time I’ll bring my sketchbook out instead. New growth has appeared on the branches—I’m not sure what kind of tree this is. Anyone know?

 Next, I snapped a shot of a neighbor’s purple martin house. Purple martins are murder on mosquitoes, something we have quite a lot of in Florida.

 The large oak tree and bench near a second retention pond, deserted today, but usually a good place to see birds:

 A four-legged neighbor:

Another tree dressing itself for spring:

I wish I was here:

…but I think the neighbors might object to my taking a nap in their back yard.

I turned around and explored the trail on the other side of our house, looking for signs of a return of the wild hogs (there was plenty of old churned-up earth where they foraged, but nothing new) when—surprise! I found this guy/girl sunning itself on the bank of a third small pond.

 As I walked home, I listened to the bird songs and the little rustlings of lizards in the dry leaves. The sun shone, the breeze blew and all was right with my world, at least for a little while. I’ll have to remember to wander with the camera or my sketchbook the next time I want to soothe an anxious soul.

Where do you wander to soothe your soul?

“There is little success where there is little laughter.”

—Andrew Carnegie

Saturday afternoon, my husband and I were in a minor fender bender. We weren’t hurt, the damage to our car is minimal, and the other driver’s insurance should cover the repair. While we waited for the police to arrive, my thoughts took the following turn: “Great. Here’s one more poopy thing happening to me this year. 2012 is shaping up just as poorly as 2011. What is going to happen next?”

I sat in my car, unhurt, watching the breeze blow Spanish moss on the oak trees while white fluffy clouds scudded across a blue sky, thinking poor, pitiful me thoughts. That was bad enough, but what bothered me most was the mindset I seem to have fallen into: being on the lookout for catastrophe. I don’t deny that bad things do happen, but this expecting catastrophe mindset is draining happiness out of my life, making me cringe and cower as I face each day, as if waiting for blows to fall. That’s not how I want to live!

A friend and I have an ongoing joke about “fresh hells”—as in “What fresh hell is this?”  At least, it started as a joke, a way to lighten up when something bad happened, as bad things do from time to time. We use the image and the phrase to help us laugh when we want to cry, and as a shorthand for some unwanted and un-looked for experiences. I don’t want necessarily to give up this joke, but maybe it’s time to add a positive version? Fresh heaven, perhaps?

Really, I’m grateful for my life, and the many beautiful things in it. Perhaps it’s time to go back to making lists of things I’m grateful for and things that make me happy. I believe we mostly find what we’re looking for, what we expect, and if my expectations are that things will be happy and good, they will be more likely to end up that way.

I’m expecting better things of 2012. How about you? How have your expectations affected your life?

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