The Journey
by Mary Oliver (Dream Work, Grove Atlantic)

On the day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

The hackneyed old saying that we come into the world with nothing and leave it with nothing has always been true (unless someone has a fundamental belief in spiritual gold and the afterlife). Yet during our life we build edifices up around ourselves in bricks and mortar, in our values, in our possessions, in our friends and family; we create the illusion that we are people connected to people and that we matter. We are certainly influenced by people and often manipulated by them. Sometimes they demand that we attend their needs, and in doing so we feel valued, so we actually, through our martyrdom, feed our ego.

But what happens when we are defined only by the wants of others and what we do for them? What happens when our own voice is drowned out by the demands of family, friends or colleagues? We disappear. We forget to take care of the essential parts of us that make us individuals with minds of our own, and cease to function on a fundamental level within ourselves. Sometimes, if we are lucky, we notice, and can get back our sense of ourselves.

I chose Mary Oliver’s poem because it resonates with what I see people experiencing all around me, and what I have experienced myself.

“One day,” she writes, “you finally knew/ what you had to do, and began,/ though the voices around you/ kept shouting/ their bad advice — ” The voices do not have the character’s interest at heart. I hear a family in those words — as the voices are seemingly confined to the house — clamoring, perhaps, for a mother’s attention (it could be a father’s — but let’s assume the character is a woman because that’ s how I identify with the poem). The voices cry “mend my life!” and seem petulant, without any thought of the character’s life or needs or wants. “Mend my life!”

Of course, I do not know if Mary Oliver was thinking of a demanding family when she wrote this, but that is what it conjures up for me: I see a woman at her wits’ end, exhausted by demands, wanting to remember who she is. She can’t prop everyone up; they only fall over as soon as her back is turned, and if she continues to fix things for them, they will forever need her to fix things; they will remain useless and she will remain used.

The woman walks out into “a wild night/ and the road full of fallen/ branches and stones”. The imagery is of facing things that challenge and concern, that are frightening, but not necessarily dangerous; the obstacles of branches and stones can be walked around or stepped over, but the journey is not easy and the decision to make it has not been reached lightly.

“But little by little,/ as you left their voices behind, . . . there was a new voice/ which you slowly/ recognised as your own.” Now there is a sense of calm as the woman can hear her own voice above the fading din. Her voice keeps her company; yet her inner thoughts and dialogue are the very elements of the self that so many people seek to drown out for fear of the loneliness that will engulf them if they have to face themselves, because they will have to listen to themselves, argue and reason with themselves, form opinions of their own, create a purpose for their own existence and find value in themselves. Terrifying.

But the woman in the poem has realised a fundamental truth as she strides into the world, “determined to do/ the only thing you could do -/ determined to save/ the only life you could save”. She has realised that we can save only ourselves. We cannot exist solely for others.

I do not advocate a selfishness that ignores the needs of others; quite the contrary. But when the needs of others strip our identity down to nothingness, we only have ourselves to blame and we cease to be of honest use; we cease to be individual and become easily led, easily influenced, easily manipulated and put upon. Our inner dialogue becomes nothing to do with who we are and everything to do with how we think others want us to be. Our inner voice does not have to be selfish, it simply has to save us, and in order to do so, we must listen to it.

To do that, we have to spend time alone with it, and when it becomes negative or lazy, we must talk sense into it! But first, we have to be able to hear it above all the other voices.