On my notes on Mary Oliver

And the photo that says it all.

It has been such a long time since I have sat to write something for Substack that I forget how I even format this thing. Something like CONTENTS | blah blah blah, with "subscribe” buttons and hyperlinks, right? Here we go:

Thank you so much for your patience with me in this space, through this season. For those of you who haven’t caught me talking about this yet, I decided at 33 to return to school. I dropped out in my early twenties (four times, but we don’t have to talk about that) with only a math class between me and an associate degree; my B.A. sitting on the horizon where, however many steps I took toward it, it never seemed to get any closer. Anyway, I somehow managed to dodge “traditional” employment and its demand for academic posturing, so my degree-seeking just seemed… done.

When I got my autism diagnosis, I’m not sure what happened, but I suddenly had this little burning-candle-of-a-feeling in my middle: I wanted to continue my education. I’ve always loved learning. I love being challenged and stretched. I like difficult feedback and the structure of a formal education. And I felt, suddenly, like I had the language to help myself through it.

So here I am, at 34, getting ready to graduate in the spring with a degree in Integrative Studies and a self-designed focus in Poetic Ethics. I’m proud of myself, and not in the “it’s never too late, good job hunny” way. I’m proud of myself for validating and accepting my own timeline—it is as reasonable and pragmatic as anyone else’s, and it was right for me.

This is the reason for my overwhelming absence from this (and all) platform(s) this year (I realized today I have posted just over 30 times to Instagram since the year began, usually in spurts with weeks of inactivity between). At the moment, I am putting finishing touches on my thesis—a series of creative essays exploring the idea of Autistic Poetics, or the poetry of autistic ways of being. I’ve been doing this through my own autistic readings of Mary Oliver’s Dream Work.

If you have been following me for a while, you may know the kinship I feel with Mary, her work and her being. To imply nothing, truly, of her neurotype—and I’m very serious about this because I don’t know and Mary’s not here to speak for herself—as an autistic reader specifically, I find something incredibly resonant in her poetry. She speaks to the world, to silence, to longing, to sensing in a way that feels not just profound, but profoundly familiar. A familiarity that is generally unfamiliar to me.

In one of my essays, I write, “When Oliver’s swan ascended ‘in the morning, rising into the silvery air,’ I heard its flight wings. I knew in my bones what she meant when she then asked, seemingly out of nowhere, ‘And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?’ Discovering Oliver, I felt for the first time I was reading, truly, in my native tongue…. We are the sort who do the hard work of growing into this world, not out of it. ‘To be a poet,’ autistic scholar Anna Nygren wrote, ‘is to be, to be, to be.’”

So much of poetry, for me, has been about finding and naming my place in the world, or, as Mary says, “in the family of things.” It has been about recognizing myself, translating my senses into words, making sense of who I understand myself to be, to be, to be.

My new favorite photograph of Mary. Source: https://www.oprah.com/entertainment/maria-shriver-interviews-poet-mary-oliver/3

Today, as I put the finishing touches on one of my essays (an autistic reflection on her poem “Whispers”—I hope to share it with you soon!) I stumbled upon this photo and laughed aloud. Mary, cross-legged on her couch in her puffy pink jacket, her cuffed jeans and colorful socks, her hands folded together, her expression soft. Mary, juxataposed with Maria Shriver in all her elegance, her long fingers and practiced gaze. My sister says it looks photoshopped.

How do I explain the feeling of this photo? A knowing. A pluck of my heartstrings, a little tug of affection that just says, “Yep.” Because I know this is how I, too, move through the world—either missing the memo entirely, or else just not caring enough about it to keep Maria Shriver from looking overdressed.

I think of the many photos—too many to count—where I am the one looking soft, pink, stockingfooted beside my wonderfully glamorous friends. I shrink from those photos a bit when they appear, the way I look so out of alignment with the people around me. Oh, but I see Mary here… and I see Someone At Home in the world. Indeed, her smile says, who gives a damn about the memo? It makes me want to go back and find those photos of me in my soft pants and deer sweatshirts, and to give my sweet, earthy self a kiss on the head. She’s not wrong in the world. She’s just a poet.

lol

The deadline for my thesis is this Thursday. My son turns 3 on Friday, and we will celebrate with our friends on Saturday. It’s a big week for our small family.

That said, I do hope to start sharing some of these writings with you soon. I want to chat about Mary, her work, about autistic poetics and the secret language of silence. The relationality of a poem. There is so, so much I am eager to share with y’all in the months to come. I hope this excites you like it does me!

I should say before I go that I am getting all outstanding poetry orders out in the next couple days. I’ve been having a very quiet sale over on my site—I don’t like to add to the noise through the holiday season, so I’m not promoting it at all (except here, if you’ve happened to read this far!). I’d say today or tomorrow are your best bets if you’re still wanting to get poems by Christmas (for those who celebrate), but I think I’ll run the sale into the New Year for you either way. Just thought I’d let you know :)

Wishing you all a soft, warm December. Wishing you goodness and light. Wishing you peace, somehow.

Take care, everyone. Talk soon!

-torri