People Who ‘Get It’

I was talking with a friend who ‘gets it’ and after using this descriptor, I started diving into people I admire who have this ineffable quality.

“Marilynne Robinson ‘gets it’,” I said. “Flannery O’Connor ‘gets it’ and Mary Oliver ‘gets it.’”

This is a small list of more famous-type people I enjoy reading who ‘get it’. But the list could go on.

Every time I make a friend who gets it, the treasure isn’t lost on me. I find myself doing best in the company of others who get it, and I am bad at trying to make friends with other moms at the playground because I’ve quickly learned that conversation with people who don’t ‘get it’ turns awkward and exhausting rather quickly. So why risk it when my head is a perfectly interesting place to stay?

(Feel free to psychologize me right now, because I’m doing the same.)

In an effort to make the ineffable slightly more tangible, I went on to describe to my friend why Mary Oliver, in particular, gets it.

(You might know Mary Oliver because of her poetry; here’s one of my personal faves titled “The Journey”):

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

–Mary Oliver

So yes, Mary Oliver writes some serious bangers, but the story that tipped me over the edge was one recounted by fellow poet Christian Wiman.

At the time, Wiman was editor of Poetry magazine and as a good cynic would, he found Mary Oliver too overrated as the most famous poet in the country. (We artists know that a famous artist is most often a palatable one..and there’s nothing worse than being a palatable artist.)

But it was Mary who was set to give the headlining presentation at Chicago’s Poetry Day, and it was Christian Wiman who was to introduce her.

His heart was already softening as he dove into her work to prep his introduction, but when they met he fell in love.

What was the tipping point?

It was when Mary arrived to Poetry Day in the middle of Chicago wearing her hunting jacket with a dead pigeon she found on high-end Michigan Avenue tucked inside her pocket.

Weird? Yes. Beautiful? Completely.

Christian doesn’t go into the reasons why this made him fall in love or why she had the bird in her pocket, but I can tell you why this made ME fall in love with her.

This story speaks of a person who pays attention to nature in every scenario, even while in the middle of a big city, high traffic street. She also gives zero fucks that while she’s picking up this dead bird and putting it in her pocket, there are sure to be people watching and judging her actions.

This story speaks of a person who finds beauty in the mundane and even grotesque (Pigeons that are alive aren’t even necessarily regarded as beautiful. Let alone ones that are dead and half eaten.)

And if this isn’t enough, Mary Oliver sees the beauty in death and knows that giving this bird a burial in her own pocket is tantamount to a holy sacrament. (She probably knew it was equivalent to one.)

Death safely tucked into the pocket of life and silently memorialized up on stage at an event where poets are gathered?

Now that’s a funeral.

This story is a microcosm of living a life that gets it. I, too, want to get it.

I want to pay attention at all times and not be constantly distracted by the busyness of life. I want to stop what I’m doing and honor the bits of beauty that catch my eye, and not be ashamed when that beauty might seem confusing and unsightly to others. I want to be someone who embraces grief simultaneously with celebration. I want to be someone who knows that holiness takes place not just in ceremonies but in the sacraments of everyday living.

As Christian said, “No, she’s really got it, as a writer and a person. The Holy Spirit is often exactly where you don’t think it will be.”

Created for The Art Lab’s October prompt