#5 of 92: Always Good to Have a Back-up Mantra

What’s a personal mantra or philosophy you live by?

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A few years ago, I was preparing a speech or a toast (maybe that’s a better word) for my older daughter’s fiftieth birthday party. I searched the internet for poems that talked about place, particularly rough places like Flint, Michigan, where she was born. The notion I had in my head was to talk about how beauty and strength come from hard places, but I ended up just saying it in the most unpoetic and probably bumbling way.

What I did find was E.E. Cummings’ poem “Love is a Place.” 

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this word of 
yes live 
(skillfully curled)
all worlds

I loved this poem so much I read it at her birthday celebration. Later, I had the words, “love is a place, yes is a world” inscribed on a silver bracelet that I wear almost all the time. It’s served me well, this little mantra.

But now I’m also calling on my mother’s Depression-era mantra of “want what you have.” This phrase could be read as resignation and maybe it was in her case. But there is also a richness in the phrase, a peace, a quiet happiness. I want what I am holding in my hands and right now it’s our little girl and our family and the back porch and our dog and cat and our work and our tiny trips and crayons and Play-Doh and Barbie dolls everywhere.

It’s always good to have a back-up mantra.