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This poem could be subtitled, “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone.”
After a childhood spent succumbing to and adapting to the routines imposed upon me, I spent the next huge chunk of my adult life creating classroom routines that attempted to balance the things that HAD TO be done, with the things we WANTED to do. Outside the classroom, adulting brought its own set of non-negotiable routines: laundry, trash day, oil changes, bills. Woven into the mandatory adult routines were the self-imposed ones: exercise, writing, reading. Oh, how I longed for retirement and a lifting of the burden of routines.
Spoiler alert…routines don’t go away when you retire. They change. There might be more wiggle room in the schedule, but the shapes of days and weeks and seasons remain.
Then there is the net of great big routines that seems so distant and inviolable that we forget to pay attention. Our democracy. Social services. The never-ending push towards civil rights. Voting. Representation.
These are the things that were on my mind as I sat down to write my ___is a Word poem. How every day seems the same…which can make me grumble even though I lean into the comfort of knowing that the one time of the day the cat loves me best is morning, when he gets his medicines and treats and grooming; if it’s Sunday, I’ll go swim some laps; if it’s summer, I’ll be looking for black swallowtail caterpillars in the fennel. It’s been almost eight years, but I remember the visceral experience of my every routine shattering the way mom’s arm and hip did when she fell, was life-flighted to Denver, wound up in the ICU, and never recovered. And yet, even within those jumbled-up days, I created what routines I could. Which brings us to now, when the net of great big routines called Life As We Know It In The United States is being demolished and we begin to see response routines emerge. I’m not buying anything today. I’m helping to jam congress’ switchboards with calls using the 5 Calls app. I’m donating every month to ACLU. All very safe and easy to add to my regular routines. I was yesterday years old when I sat for two hours in a community stitching circle and heard passionate volunteers tell about what Food Not Bombs and other mutual aid groups are doing to get good food that is headed for the landfill into the hands of those who need it. Work that is and has been being done to push back against broken systems and make an actual tangible difference in the lives of our neighbors.
It’s time for another change in my routines.
Here’s what the rest of the crew came up with:
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Denise has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Care to Share.
The image is via Wikimedia.
A(nother) Year of Reading 
Mary Lee, I loved reading the wrap-up, with all you are doing to build new routines in your life. Important routines to save our democracy. Your poem made me think of all the kinds of routines in my life. The good and comfort of routines, changing routines when they don’t fit any longer, the essentialness of routines, but that last stanza really hits. Thank you for pointing out the dangers.
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Your spoiler alert now has me depressed, though I do recall my father being even busier in retirement than when he was teaching.
I love your activism and this poem. The last line of the third stanza feels most hopeful to me.
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Ugh, you really let us feel the stultifying claustrophobia of routine and yet — sign post. Boundaries. Essential routes in and out. As I await paperwork from the IRS to get paid for publishing overseas, I regret deeply the chaos that a lack of routine has provided essential and humdrum, even boring government services…
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Love the journey between each stanza (well the reality of the final one, not so much. Who would have thought we’d live in such times?) That third stanza has such clever word play!
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Thank you for the different ways of considering routines, Mary Lee. I agree, routines don’t go away in retirement, they just look different. Thank you for your call to action, too. Perhaps we all need new routines in order for us and our country to survive.
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Your poem reminded me about how “unprecedented” everything is. Sometimes routine and ordinary behavior is a balm. I especially like your third stanza (and your new routines). xo
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I’m fascinated by what you did with a routine word. Today was a hard day for me and for my students because routines were shattered by the-last-day-before-Mardi-Gras-break-obligatory shoebox parade and too much king cake. Routines are absolutely the everything is right with the world kind of word.
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Mary Lee, how creative to show the many faces of Routine! She can be helpful, and she can wear on you. Your finish with “all-bets-are-off that democracy survives” is a chilling reminder not to get comfortable with letting this chaos become routine.
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We crave it, resist it, take it for granted. Such luxury, a first-world word.
Thank you for making me stop and acknowledge I’m guilty of all 3.
Now on to fighting back.
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I love this word, routine! I simultaneously rely on it and challenge it on a daily basis. I love it…but wouldn’t it be fun to break it? I think that’s why I like to travel so much…it gets me out of my routine. Well done, Mary Lee. I’m glad for your commentary on this poem as well. It’s so much like Padraig O’Touma. It led me to a second reading just to complete the feel of that.
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Mary Lee, I love all of this, but especially the third stanza. I’m a creature of routines–and I also love breaking them occasionally. So true that routines lead to taking things for granted, though. Lots to dig into in this clever poem!
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Your poem offers so much to ponder. Routines do make me feel safe, organized, even productive. Until I read your remarks, hadn’t thought of activism in terms of establishing new routines as they are needed.
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Well, I love it all, including your ending, Mary Lee, and that you found some important parts of your word, like ‘in’ and ‘out’. You filled routine up with what we do, what we notice, and perhaps most of all, what we are working to notice in order to do right. Glad to hear your new routine!
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I’m horrified to see Life As We Know It fading away in the U.S. but heartened to see how many people are standing up to fight back. I love “inside it holds ROUTE / and the path IN and OUT.”Thanks for your five calls. They matter!
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I love routines! 🙂 I love that you found the parts of other words within this one.
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I’ve always been a bit spontaneous, but my son, who is neurodivergent, absolutely needs his routines, and really struggles with any change to them. The routines that he finds comforting and reassuring I can find chafing – you’ve really captured the complexity with which we view these every day aspects of our lives.
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wow, Mary Lee, this is more than a poem—-it’s a meditation on routine. And it has my brain whirring in a way that is NOT routine but focused on ways in and out and what we all share, or thought we did. Well done.
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Mary Lee, I missed your February poem but am glad to catch up here. I fell in love with this stanza that I stare at.
Spoiler alert…routines don’t go away when you retire. They change. There might be more wiggle room in the schedule, but the shapes of days and weeks and seasons remain.
Sometimes routines are boring but you did not make this poem filled with boring thoughts.
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