There are moments when the words simply don’t come. You sit down with a notebook, with an outline, with the best intentions, but the ink doesn’t flow, and your mind can’t quite focus. In those moments, the world feels heavy, as if everything around you is pressing down just a little too hard. I had planned to write today about creative exercises—those tricks and techniques to help bypass the conscious mind and let the writing flow freely. It’s a subject I love, something I believe in deeply. But today, I couldn’t bring myself to write about it.
Sometimes, you just can’t.
In the past few weeks, I’ve been faced with something I never expected: two people close to me diagnosed with cancer. It’s a gut-wrenching, surreal feeling, and the overwhelming sense of despair doesn’t go away. It fills your chest, weighs on your thoughts, and follows you around even when you’re trying to go about your daily life. You carry it with you like an invisible burden—anticipatory grief, they call it. Grief that comes not from an immediate loss, but from the knowing that it’s coming. It’s an ocean of emotion that we all know, in some form. And even though I’m not the one who is ill, it feels like I’m drowning in it anyway.
I’ve often heard people say “count your blessings” in these kinds of moments, and yes, I know they mean well. But sometimes it’s not that simple. When the people you love are hurting, it feels like being caught between two walls—one wall asks, “What can I do to help?” while the other silently reminds you, “But you can’t fix this.” That disparity is suffocating, and there’s little space to breathe or think clearly.
So, what do you do when you can’t fix it? When the words aren’t coming and the weight of it all feels too much? For me, the answer is often poetry.
As a child, I had a habit of “looking it up.” Whenever I had a question, I’d run to a dictionary, a thesaurus, or the trusty encyclopedia to find an answer. Books were always there to provide the solutions. That instinct to search for answers in books has stayed with me throughout my life, and often, I turn to them when I’m struggling. But sometimes, there are no answers to be found on the pages. Sometimes, the only thing left to do is to sit with yourself and accept what is beyond understanding. The answers don’t always come from the outside—they come from within.
That’s when poetry offers its balm. It’s a kind of self-soothing, a way to shift my focus and step outside of my mind for a moment. I often turn to my favorite poets: Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, or whoever feels right in the moment. It’s the kind of reading that pulls me out of my head and brings me back to my senses, to a place where I can breathe.
And so, today, I invite you to join me in one of my favorite exercises of the subconscious. Let’s take a journey together. Open the book Devotions by Mary Oliver, flip through the pages, and stop wherever you land. Don’t think too hard about it—just let the poem find you.
This is the poem I landed on:
Poppies
The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation
of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t
sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage
shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,
black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.
But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness
when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed in the river
of earthly delight—
And what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?
Mary Oliver’s words, in all their simplicity and profundity, are a kind of invitation to surrender. To let go of the weight and allow the light to seep in, even if only for a moment. “Loss is the great lesson,” she says, but also, “light is an invitation to happiness.” There’s a kind of holiness in happiness, she reminds us—a redemptive quality that can be felt even in the midst of despair.
In times like these, when the darkness feels overwhelming, I remind myself to look for those fleeting moments of light. Whether it’s through poetry, a quiet moment of reflection, or the simple act of walking outside and noticing the world around me, these small moments of connection to the beauty of life can help to ease the weight, even if just for a moment.
So, what can we do? We write. We meditate. We read poems. We dance. We find our way out of the indigos of darkness and into the light—however we can. Take your intermissions when you need to, my friends. Give yourself permission to pause, to reflect, and to allow the light to find you, even if it’s just a glimmer. Peace to you.
