Why did I never see it for what it was: abundance?

Two Ada Limón poems artfully paired to reflect growth as grace

Over the past few years, I’ve been purposefully studying (quietly, “unofficially”) under the guidance of the inestimable Sharon Daloz Parks. I sought out Sharon because I specifically wanted to learn and understand (among other things) the role of imagination in adult faith formation and she is, quite simply, THE BEST*.

As part of this study, Sharon has oriented me to three major disciplines based on her own significant and impactful work in the areas of young adult faith formation and Adaptive Leadership:

• Social-Psychology, to better understand how humans grow and develop in the context of their environment(s);

• Philosophy, to explore Imagination as the great integrator, or “highest form of Reason of the knowing mind” (per Coleridge) and;

• Education, to gain insight into the paradigms, tools, and techniques that best help adults learn.

All of this is largely beside the point, but it is helpful context for explaining that in my early reading in social psychology, I was reassured to discover that many theories of human development are “neutral”. That is, they describe various stages of biological and human development across the lifespan but fall short of deeming any one stage “better” than any other. There is gentle wisdom in this, as it establishes that a developmentally challenged 4-year-old is in no way “less than” or “below” an intellectually rigorous septuagenarian despite their differing capacities. I deeply appreciate neutrality in this respect.

At the same time, other psychosocial theories, specifically those related to the development of things like cognition (Piaget) or moral reasoning (Kohlberg), are unapologetic in asserting that higher stages are better, or “more adequate”, primarily because they are able to account for (i.e. accommodate) more. This, too, makes sense. When it is a theorist’s task to evaluate how people grow in their capacity to determine what is right, logical, and trustworthy about the world (and subsequently how to act in it) it matters that they would make judgments between “more adequate” or “less adequate” ways of making sense, choosing, and behaving.

I share all this not to launch a substantive or contentious theoretical discussion, but rather to note the frameworks that are running in the backdrop of my consciousness as I recently listened to an OnBeing conversation with U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.

The episode, “To Be Made Whole” first aired in February 2023, but I didn’t listen to it until earlier this year. As you may notice this is a loooong conversation (71 minutes!) that was originally a live event, so it took a few laps around the block with our dog before I got through all of it.

What especially struck me was a section near the end (Timestamp 36:51) where Krista Tippett invites Limón to read two poems back-to-back, both of which deal with her parents’ divorce when she was young.

My own parents split up when I was six, Ada’s when she was seven. So, the first thing I noticed was that Ada and I likely had comparable developmental bandwidths for “making sense” of that experience. Also like Ada, when my parents remarried they chose partners who made good stepparents who remain active fixtures in my life today. There are differences, too, of course. She was an only child while I was the middle of three girls. Her parents split amicably while mine, well…did not.

Still, what is remarkable to me about these two poems, written (or published, at least) about 7 years apart, is how significantly her perspective shifts to “account for more” as she ages and, presumably, grows. She seems to sort of re-map or re-order how she understands this story of loss in a way that can now “accommodate” generosity and grace alongside those other, older feelings. What is especially endearing about this exchange is that this shift appears to be a real-time discovery for Ada as she is sitting on-stage mid-discussion, a small treasure Tippett offers out of the gifts of her own attentiveness.

The exchange begins with Tippett inviting Limón to read aloud a well-loved poem, “Joint Custody” from her latest collection, The Hurting Kind. But, before she does that, Tippett adds a caveat: “I want you to read it second, because what I found in Bright Dead Things, which was a couple of years before that…was the way you wrote, a way that you spoke of the same story of yourself. And then what we find in the second poem is a kind of evolution.”

So, first Tippett asks her to read a poem titled “Before” from her 2015 collection Bright Dead Things, to which Limón replies, “I love that you do this. [Then, to the crowd] She’s teaching me a lesson. [laughter] But I mean…This is amazing.” Then Limón reads:

“Before” 
by Ada Limón

No shoes and a glossy
red helmet, I rode
on the back of my dad’s
Harley at seven years old.
Before the divorce.
Before the new apartment.
Before the new marriage.
Before the apple tree.
Before the ceramics in the garbage.
Before the dog’s chain.
Before the koi were all eaten
by the crane. Before the road
between us there was the road
beneath us, and I was just
big enough not to let go:
Henno Road, creek just below,
rough wind, chicken legs,
and I never knew survival
was like that. If you live,
you look back and beg
for it again, the hazardous
bliss before you know
what you would miss.

Copyright © 2015 by Ada Limón, Bright Dead Things, Milkweed Editions

What is striking about this poem, to me, is how well it captures the jarring reality that dawns on small children when the world as they’ve known it splits in two overnight. Its early lines revel in the pure, childlike joy and utterly carefree image of being barefoot while donning a glossy red helmet. In that moment, everything is an adventure. She clings to her dad on the back of a motorcycle, relishing how easily she trusts him as they zoom full speed down Henno Road.

The punch, of course, comes in the realization that all of this was the “before”, and the poem’s sober recognition that the “after” of new homes, new parents, ceramics in the garbage, dogs on chains, dead koi, was far more complicated. It is not a dark poem, or even particularly negative - it remembers the apple tree and the novelty of newness in ways that acknowledge real goodness - but it is a sober poem. Its grief hovers achingly just below the surface with clear emphasis on the marked delineation between before and after, its insistence on that moment-in-time split that ends up lasting forever. “Before the road between us” the poem observes, “I never knew survival was like that…”

Then, brilliantly, Tippett invites her to read “Joint Custody”, a more recent reflection on her childhood experience of growing up between two homes. In the recorded version this is especially sweet because you can tell Limón is truly realizing mid-conversation what this is about to reveal about her own evolving perspective. “This is amazing,” she says again before reading the second poem:

Joint Custody
by Ada Limón 

Why did I never see it for what it was:
abundance? Two families, two different
kitchen tables, two sets of rules, two
creeks, two highways, two stepparents
with their fish tanks or eight-tracks or
cigarette smoke or expertise in recipes or
reading skills. I cannot reverse it, the record
scratched and stopped to the original
chaotic track. But let me say, I was taken
back and forth on Sundays and it was not easy
but I was loved each place. And so I have
two brains now. Two entirely different brains.
The one that always misses where I’m not,
and the one that is so relieved to finally be home. 

Copyright © 2022 by Ada Limón, The Hurting Kind, Corsair Poetry

As soon as she finishes reading Ada remarks, “ I see what you did there.” I bet you do too. As do I.

What is so amazing to me about this is exactly what Ada herself acknowledges when she says, “ It’s so interesting because I feel like one of the things as you age, as an artist, as a human being, you start to rethink the stories that people have told you and start to wonder what was useful and what was not useful.”

This process of letting oneself begin to “wonder what was useful and what was not useful” is actually a vital step in moving toward maturity as a grown-up, according to the academic literature and, hopefully, our own experience. But for most of us it is easier said than done. To be truly willing to examine, to question, to unravel some of the closely held truths and convictions about our experience, about what we know and don’t know, and then to try and put it back together again with integrity and conviction even as it takes on a new shape and flavor; this requires a significant amount of courage. It also requires a great deal of support and community from others who can, quite literally, “hold” a person through the disruption and disorientation of what can often feel like an upheaval.

That said, Limón’s two poems do not reflect the full magnitude of all that adult growth might ask or require of us. That is not their purpose nor ours (today at least). What they do offer is a taste of what we might discover if we, too, have the courage to re-visit, re-examine, re-explore some of the background feelings and assumptions that are running as givens in our own lives. Instead of simply living in the flat binary world of “before” and “after”, she invites us to consider that maybe there is also space for some abundance to reveal itself if we are willing to widen the scope or make revisions to the script we already know.

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• When I say “THE BEST” I do mean this in every possible sense. Sharon is a great and pioneering scholar in the area of young adult faith formation, but even more importantly, she is the most wonderful human being who embodies every word she has ever taught or spoken with a presence and grace that is other-worldly. It is a privilege to know and learn from her. Do yourself a favor: read her stuff!