…and to my wife, Beth. She knows how much.
That’s the last line in the acknowledgments at the beginning of a book of poems I was about to read. In the acknowledgments, a few well-known poets are mentioned, and Joe Salerno is called irreplaceable, but Beth… well, she knows how much. Stephen Dunn wrote, “The true lover wants to give everything away. This is why a writer should never be expected to be a true lover.” I haven’t even started this particular book of poems, but I suspect Beth’s husband, the author, is not a true lover.
Granted, theirs could be a relationship so intimate that he doesn’t need to acknowledge or share. Maybe he tells her every day. Maybe she really does know. Perhaps they have a secret code or a cute “he knows, she knows” way of downplaying their love for each other. But my immediate reaction was to feel more than a bit offended for Beth. “You’re a fucking poet and the best you can come up with is an ‘also ran’ type of acknowledgment…. and since I’m mentioning everyone else, I should probably throw a bone to my wife, Beth. She knows how much.”
That was two nights ago. I put the book down, wrote a few lines of righteous indignation (you’re welcome, Beth) and then tried to read a bit. I wanted to write more than I wanted to read and torn between the two, I did neither. My mind was full of information I had taken in throughout the day, stories I had heard, and connections I had drawn.
In the morning I heard about a new book IRL. The author writes about grappling with his online persona and the person he is inside. He talked about how in any given moment we are but a snapshot of ourselves. He mentioned containing multiple selves. He writes about trying to be bold and comfortable in the online space knowing that he is showing a part of himself that few people see. I’ve grappled with these very issues over the past year. The online world is both fake and real and has come to represent a significant part of who we are and how we relate to the world – how do we navigate it? How many people, high profile people, have lost jobs, friends, or family for behaving poorly online or IRL? How can we be ourselves, however shitty that might be, if someone is always watching and we are one Facebook post away from having our worst snapshots being shared, while none of our more graceful moments see the light of day? Maybe in some dystopian future having been publicly shamed will be so common that instead of graduating class year (Harvard, 2012) or job title (Head Technician), it becomes our new way of introducing ourselves…. Tom Smith, racially insensitive comment screamed at a child in park in Peoria, August, 2024. It got 32k retweets and generated 27 new memes…
There were one or two other things I had listened to or read that resonated but I have since forgotten about. I’ve been listening to a lot of NPR lately and have been reading some pop-psychology again – the stuff you find on Psychology Today: Narcissists in relationships and what words to banish for a healthy mindset… Related to what I read and wrote about the other day (getting organized and to-do lists), I’ve been acutely aware of how mulling over some “issues” or tasks or situations gives me the false perception that I’ve actually addressed the issue (or task or situation). This becomes a type of weight that I’d rather not carry around.
This morning, sitting at the table and trying to journal / complete this multi-day mish-mosh of thoughts, I’m surrounded by folders and notes and work papers. My thoughts are constantly interrupted by things I need to do or should do. Beginning with one bite does little to answer the question – why are you trying to eat an elephant in the first place? Gone are the days of “free thinking” that I enjoyed a few months back. Gone are the days of letting my mind wander and explore, and with that, creativity slips away or is transformed into reading about cell phone usage and reimbursement policies. I’m struggling to “turn off” and I can feel it. My conversations with friends and family have felt more like therapy sessions and I feel markedly less jovial and lighthearted.
And maybe that’s where the poet and his wife arrived after years of mutual support. Him bitching, her venting… a type of effective dependency in which they carry each other’s burdens and serve as mutual distractions. Maybe what needs to be acknowledged between them would fill a book – and Beth, she knows how much.