有线电视新闻网: What have you heard from readers about how the book has connected with them during this time?
Maggie Smith: The headspace I was in when I wrote this book is, 坦白说, the same headspace a lot of us are in because we don’t recognize our lives anymore and we don’t know what’s coming. Many of us have experienced real losses because of the pandemic — lost lives, job loss, suffering relationships, career paths that are suddenly uncertain, or we have children at home learning while we’re trying to manage everything else.
The center of the Venn diagram where uncertainty, grief, 愤怒, sadness and confusion overlap is a very dark place. We need to draw upon the best parts of ourselves to get through this: our resilience, courage and belief in what is possible. I think the book is reaching people in that way.
有线电视新闻网: What practices have you discovered that might help people move forward?
史密斯: One is making time every day to do something that makes you feel like your core self. 为了我,
that’s writing. 为他人,
it’s meditation,
yoga,
spiritual practice,
跑步,
weight lifting, 唱歌,
painting.
Do whatever helps you create what I describe as a snow globe moment,
when everything outside is just stilled and you can be alone with yourself in a way that feels safe, 健康,
generative.
Another is gratitude.
I asked people on Twitter recently to tell me one good thing that happened to them during the day.
After reading and responding to those comments all day,
I got my first full night’s sleep in months.
I don’t think that’s an accident;
letting all good stuff wash over you is really important.
Paying attention helps, 太. Poetry has trained me how to notice. It’s difficult to stay down when you take a walk and notice light filtering through leaves. Does it solve your problem? 没有. But it can lift you out of the basement of where you are. Maybe it gets you to the first floor so you can function.
有线电视新闻网: Can you talk a bit about what you refer to as “beauty emergencies”?
史密斯: These days we often wind up anxiously refreshing the news. Every new bit of negativity becomes like one of those dog shock collars. It’s just so jarring. We’re not getting: “Breaking News: Sun Filtering through Leaves in an Amazing Way on South Roosevelt Avenue.”
We typically think of an emergency as a problem, but the word stems from “emergent,” which just means “happening now.” A beauty emergency is something wonderful that you have to look at right away because it’s fleeting. If you wait five minutes, a pink sky’s not going to be pink anymore. We need to train ourselves to think about emergency in a different way, and show up for the good stuff, 太.
有线电视新闻网: How do we get from surviving to thriving amid adversity?
史密斯: My friend, the poet Dana Levin, said something recently about healing versus endurance. Healing is the ideal, 对? We want to be better. But endurance suggests something different, which is not that we get over the thing. 代替, we learn how to carry it better. Realistic expectations are important. No daily practice is going to make everything OK. But it can make things a little better. And that might help you be more functional, or more yourself.
有线电视新闻网: How does suffering connect us to one another?
史密斯: The whole world is suffering through this pandemic right now. But it’s also true that the whole world is working toward fixing a single problem. 现在, all of our collective imagination, wisdom and innovation is being funneled toward solving this. I find this sense of unity really comforting. Consider what gains we will make on the empathy continuum because of this shared experience.
有线电视新闻网:
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Audre Lorde’s declaration that “
poetry is not a luxury.”
Poetry is often dismissed as ethereal,
fringe or indulgent.
How do the arts and culture help us weather difficulty?
史密斯: We’re all leaning heavily on the arts right now, especially because we are separated. Even people who would probably vote against art funding are watching Netflix. They probably have art hanging in their homes. What has gotten me through this year is buying way too many records, listening to so much music, watching good films and writing and reading a ton. We do sometimes think the arts are a luxury and, 不幸, they are often funded as a luxury. But to me, they’re essential. Making art is a human endeavor that connects us to other people. The arts light you up even if you don’t speak the language. I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t value, fund or make those connections possible for people.
有线电视新闻网: How is your conversion to a “recovering pessimist” 去? Is there hope for the rest of us?
史密斯: I used to think that optimism was weak and sort of silly because people who were smart could see the world for what it was. Now I see optimism and vulnerability as signs of strength. It takes courage to see the good when things are hard — when the dark is yelling so loud and taking up so much space.
There’s a kind of privilege in pessimism because if things are really going poorly and you are in survival mode, you can’t afford to be pessimistic. “Keep Moving” is me trying to tell myself a kinder story about what is possible.
In the beginning, I was trying on hope every day. It felt terrible — itchy, scratchy, oversized. I couldn’t wait to take it off. It was so uncomfortable trying to be hopeful when things felt miserable. But I found that the act of trying — of looking for something to feel positive about — made a difference over time. I proved to myself that I could be an optimist.
The world is terrible. And the world is wonderful. Right? It’s both.