When we can let some things go.
Today, I said no to Coleridge, the poet.
You know, the one no one reads unless they have to. The one who (when I do read him) causes me to feel a growing anxiety and frustration because of how long he is taking to get to the point. The one I only read at all because of the nagging voice in the back of my head telling me I don’t have as complete a classical education as I should, -- that I really should both understand and enjoy this poet's genius.
This morning I told that nagging voice to take a hike, and said to my husband, who was going through a stack of books we were giving away and wondered about the Coleridge, “No, get rid of it.”
My husband placed the almost new volume neatly on the pile of books we are taking down to our local bookstore, where they will find their new home in the second-hand book-shelves by the back door.
I wonder what will happen to the Coleridge.
Some of you may be shocked by my disregard for a giant of English Literature, and so he is. But I'm getting to the point in my life where I can live with that.
The fact is, there are so many books I find unutterably wonderful and powerful and transformative that I am now able to get rid of the ones that aren’t. It’s a surprisingly freeing part of growing older, -- the ability to choose, to let go of feeling that I must be good at everything, understand everything, fill every expectation.
I tell myself I need to be careful not to become narrow minded or opinionated to the point of not being open to new ideas. But, I finally can say there are some things I doubt I will ever like, and certain types of poetry is one of them. (Most opera is another and, obviously, anchovies.)
A friend of mine mentioned the other day how inflexible old people can get. It made me stop and think about when I was closer to her age. I was never more opinionated, more inflexible, not ever. My late teens and early twenties were a steady barrage of knowing what I believed, and plowing straight ahead with my biases (implicit and explicit, even though I didn’t know the difference back then), -- without a sideways glance. It never occurred to me I might be wrong .
Which is why another friend’s comment rings in my ears these days, even though he has passed from this phase of existence. He said that once, when he was arguing with someone and was sure he was right, he finally stopped and asked himself, “Is it possible? Could it be . . . that I’m the idiot?”
Now, “idiot” is a strong word, but I'm quite sure it fits me more than I know. Perhaps letting go of my Coleridge text is one of those times, but I don’t think so. And, anyway, I’m sure I’ll be able to pick it back up in my local bookstore on the second-hand shelf under “Poetry” in a year or two if I change my mind . . .
