Day 70: You Do Not Have to Be Good

To be honest, this entry is just an excuse to share my all time favorite poem by my all time favorite poet with you.

Wild Geese

By Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwh

ile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.”

Ahhhhh!!!! She slays. Even just reading the first line makes me weepy.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to be good.

How hard are we always trying, as mothers, to be good? No, great. No, perfect.

What would it mean to just love hard? To know we exist, we have a place, in the great wide world, and nature is there to remind us of this?

To stop trying so dang hard to problem solve every moment of the day. To let go. To remember.

You do not have to be good.