Ellen Bass: Relax

My husband and I went to Portland Insight Meditation Community on Sunday morning (https://www.portlandinsight.org/). Ron and I are so very grateful for this spiritual community and its lead teacher, Robert Beatty, who also married us nearly 10 years ago. Before the meditation and the dharma talk, Robert began our morning together with reading this poem by Ellen Bass. I love this poem! As we all listened, there was the soft laughter of resonance, of irony, of recognizing both the sweetness and the sorrows of life. And since then my husband and I will sometimes smile and remind each other of "how sweet and tart the red juice is" when something comes up, like when Ron beats me yet again in Uno Rummy-Up — the game we are addicted to and play pretty much every evening. And, whether big or small joys or sorrows, I am reminded about equanimity in the midst of our lives and the invitation, as best as we can, to embrace it all. Deep bow. 🙏 Molly

Photo by Molly

Relax

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.

— Ellen Bass