Transcript
A (0:03)
If your small business is booming and ready to expand, you might say something like it's happening.
B (0:11)
Crushed it.
A (0:12)
But if you need someone who can actually help protect your growing business, just say, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. And just like that, your State Farm agent can help you get the coverage you need for your new space for your small business insurance needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is.
C (0:29)
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B (1:01)
Smith and this is the Slowdown I need a lot of alone time. I know this about myself and I've done my best to build a life that protects that need. Yes, I'm a solo parent of two children, so I'm not alone much in the evenings. Yes, I've lived in the same city all my life, so it's not easy for me to be alone in public, to sit at a coffee shop, to do some writing, or to have a meal or see a concert by myself. I'm always running into people I know high school classmates, former college professors, former students, old neighbors, and even relatives. But I work from home each day, so I've given myself a buffer of several hours every day when I'm mostly by myself. Sometimes there are meetings in person or virtual, but for the most part, while my children are at school, I get a decent stretch of solo time. I remember when I left my day job almost 15 years ago to work from home as a freelancer. A co worker said, aren't you going to get lonely? I laughed. No offense, but no. Anyone who thought I'd be lonely didn't know me very well. I get it though. It's a double edged sword. On one hand, many of us crave and require solitude to write, to read, to concentrate. But sometimes prolonged apartness from others can make you feel a little feral. So many of us got a taste of this during lockdown in 2020. Parents, children, co workers, neighbors. I think we all had to learn how to live in our bubbles, separated from many of the people and places we loved. And then we had to relearn how to enter the world once lockdown was over. There is such a thing as too much solitude, too much separation from others. All things in moderation, I suppose. Today's poem is by one of my favorite poets, the late Stanley Plumlee. Maybe more than anyone else in my life, Stan understood the double bind of deep solitude, that for the poet, for the artist, it's as lonely as it is necessary. It's both At Night by Stanley Plumlee. When did I know that I'd have to carry it around in order to have it when I need it, say, in a pocket? The dark itself not dark enough, but needing to be added to, handful by handful if necessary, until the way my mother would sit all night in a room without the lights, smoking until she disappeared. Where would she go? Because I would go there in the morning, nothing but a blanket and all her absence and the feeling in the air of happiness and so much loneliness, a kind of purity of being and emptiness. No one you are or could ever be my mother like another me in another life gone where I will go night now likely dark enough I can be alone as I've never been alone before. The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. To get a poem delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and sign up for our newsletter and find us on Instagram lodownshow and blueskylowdownshow.org Foreign hello Slowdown listeners. Poetry Magazine has a special offer just for you. Subscribe to one year of Poetry Magazine today and receive their limited edition tote bag for $39. That's the cost of one Loboo. You'll receive 10 beautifully curated print magazines of contemporary poetry. Unlimited digital access via the Poetry Magazine app and a tote bag to carry it all. Subscribe today@poetrymagazine.org Slowdown25 to receive this special offer.