While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.
*****
"I've got no problem not seeing what I don't need to see."
———Hanif Abdurraquib
——--There’s Always This Year
A gravel drive led from our cabin to the main road, cutting through a pasture where a dozen cows grazed. As I hiked toward the bovines, I hesitated, leery of anything wearing four legs and a tail. A calf looked up at me, then ambled closer to its mother. (My apologies to the cows for being presumptuous about their relationship.) The little one was cute, until she was obscured by her bigger, meaner mom.
I stopped. My knees quivered.
Mama cow squared herself to the drive, ready to attack. Further ahead, cows were lying close enough to swat me with their tails.
My knees got very fluttery, in addition to the quivering.
Other mooing beasts had closed in from behind. They would definitely breathe on me.
My knees were buckling, in addition to the fluttering and quivering. I prepared to die from cow cooties.
The monsters got bored and wandered off. And when they left, all the activity in my joints wandered off as well.
I was grateful for such a close-up look at fear. How it rose and fell and passed away. How judgments piled on top of anxiety will spiral you into panic. Maybe I’ll take this as a starting point, to accept my whole self once and for all. Yes, from now on, a new mantra: compassion for anxiety.
As we were packing up at the end of our get-away, my friend said, “I saw a bobcat yesterday.”
What?
Note to my knees: Are you nuts? You wasted my scaries on cows? There were bobcats out there.
*****
"I've got no problem not seeing what I don't need to see."
———Hanif Abdurraquib
——--There’s Always This Year
A gravel drive led from our cabin to the main road, cutting through a pasture where a dozen cows grazed. As I hiked toward the bovines, I hesitated, leery of anything wearing four legs and a tail. A calf looked up at me, then ambled closer to its mother. (My apologies to the cows for being presumptuous about their relationship.) The little one was cute, until she was obscured by her bigger, meaner mom.
I stopped. My knees quivered.
Mama cow squared herself to the drive, ready to attack. Further ahead, cows were lying close enough to swat me with their tails.
My knees got very fluttery, in addition to the quivering.
Other mooing beasts had closed in from behind. They would definitely breathe on me.
My knees were buckling, in addition to the fluttering and quivering. I prepared to die from cow cooties.
The monsters got bored and wandered off. And when they left, all the activity in my joints wandered off as well.
I was grateful for such a close-up look at fear. How it rose and fell and passed away. How judgments piled on top of anxiety will spiral you into panic. Maybe I’ll take this as a starting point, to accept my whole self once and for all. Yes, from now on, a new mantra: compassion for anxiety.
As we were packing up at the end of our get-away, my friend said, “I saw a bobcat yesterday.”
What?
Note to my knees: Are you nuts? You wasted my scaries on cows? There were bobcats out there.
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