Sometimes, especially lately, now that summer is officially over, I find myself talking to Mary Oliver specifically about the last lines of her well-known poem, "The Summer Day" which read, "What will you do with your one wild and precious life?" " And yes, this talking I'm doing with Mary Oliver is inside my mind, but no matter. (Reality is often a trivial thing and quite unnecessary, so much of the time.) So usually, when I'm talking to Mary, I'm telling her not what I WILL do with my one wild and precious life, but what I WILL NOT do with it. I say, "I'll tell you what Mary, I will NOT do the laundry right now, and I will NOT worry at all about what so and so thinks of me, and I will NOT even attempt to figure everything out about everything, even though I probably wish I could do that- I won't be. No, no." Sometimes while I'm talking, Mary will flash a picture of a river, or a snake, or a tadpole at me and I think it is her way of saying, "Great ideas of what not to do with your one wild and precious life Barrie and by the way, Aren't rivers, snakes, and tadpoles amazing?" "Yes, they are." I say. "Quite." ( Mary, by the way, is a huge fan of nature. She is nature's main poetic groupie. Nature is her favorite band and it just never stops playing for her, not ever.) The other day I said, "Mary, you know what I will NOT be doing with my one wild and precious life today?" "What?" Mary asked. I said, "I will not be subscribing to any dichotomies at all, none whatsoever. I'm done with dichotomies completely." "Well, why would you ever subscribe to Dichotomies?" she said. "Really," she went on,"Dichotomies is an absolutely horrendous magazine."
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