A certain poem was on my mind today, “My Life Before I Knew It,” by Lawrence Raab, as I just watched a movie that reminded me of it, somehow. In the opinion of one reviewer, "The Waiting Room" is an enchanting British Indie about the elusiveness of chance and how one initially ignored moment can change your life forever." I love this film: its quietness, reminder of the coolness I left behind in upstate New York. Further, it soothed me to watch it, as this thing called love can happen when one least expects it...
As to the above poem that has inspired this post, I am a Garrison Keillor fan and have his book, Good Poems, in which this poem is featured on page 181. It is further commemorated and celebrated as a part of the Writer's Almanac, which I used to enjoy just before heading off to Albany Law School in the crisp days of fall, which will soon be upon us. Sadly, however, this crispness passes us by here in Texas, where summer turns to fall during late October/early November and sometimes not until December. When this particular poem was read, however, it was a summer day, 2 days hence, many years ago: July 31, 2001. At this time, I would have been in Paris, France, enjoying my first trip abroad. It is fitting to enjoy this poem and its recording now, albeit a bit after the fact. I hope you will also enjoy it.
“My Life Before I Knew It,” by Lawrence Raab from The Probable World(Penguin).
My Life Before I Knew It
I liked rainy days
when you didn't have to go outside and play.
At night I'd tell my sister
there were snakes under her bed.
When I mowed the lawn I imagined being famous.
Cautious and stubborn, unwilling to fail,
I knew for certain what I didn't want to know.I hated to dance. I hated baseball,
and collected airplane cards instead.
I learned to laugh at jokes I didn't get.
The death of Christ moved me,
but only at the end of Ben-Hur.
I thought Henry Mancini was a great composer.My secret desire was to own a collie
who would walk with me in the woods
when the leaves were falling
and I was thinking about writing the stories
that would make me famous.Sullen, overweight, melancholy,
writers didn't have to be good at sports.
They stayed inside for long periods of time.
They often wore glasses. But strangers
were moved by what they accomplished
and wrote them letters. One day
one of those strangers would introduce
herself to me, and then
the life I'd never been able to forsee
would begin, and everything
before I became myself would appear
necessary to the rest of the story.
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