I know how to lose stuff, too

Today in class, we talked about The Sun Also Rises, but we also talked about the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. After reading this poem, I looked around to see grins on my classmate's and even Ms. Lemon's faces, yet I couldn't help being surprised at this sight. I do agree it's a well-written poem, but it's not one that leaves me smiling. It's heart-breaking. It's beautiful. It's deeper than it first seems.

Bishop starts her poem by talking of losing things of little value and how it is not a disaster but is even to be expected. Yet as the poem goes on, the things she loses become larger thing, more sentimental, a bigger deal, arguably a disaster. Bishop writes of losing "places, and names, and where it was you meant / to travel" (Bishop 8-9). These are dreams she's losing. Dreams. Maybe it's just that I'm a senior and preparing to enter into that last stage before *cringe* adulthood. Maybe it's because we're hyper-sensitive at this time to find our passion and pursue it. Maybe it's because I've seen too many adults living their life in a job that's merely that: a job. It breaks my heart that this narrator has lost the places she dreamed of going, the people who meant so much to her at one time. Then she loses her mother's watch. It's unclear if her mother is alive or not. But upon hearing this line, I imagined it as the gift her mother had given her. It probably has tremendous value, especially if her mother has died. Then she writes of losing houses, cities, rivers, and a continent. If you have ever had to move, you know what a cause of stress it becomes. Perhaps she's been evicted, but even if she's moving of her own volition moving is stressful.

Then comes the biggest shift in the poem. She has lost "you."  I don't know who "you" is, but it's very clear to me that "you" was loved and "you" was important. It's so clear. The narrator describes "the joking voice, a gesture" (16). These are small things you only know on best friends or someone you're in love with. Yet how does Bishop end the poem? By saying that losing things is easy and saying it's not a disaster. I only agree with one of those statements.

How many times have I sent a text spilling my vulnerabilities and feelings only to end it with "haha", "LOL", or "or whatever"? Isn't that what Bishop is doing here? Only instead of an "or whatever," Bishop adds that nothing is a disaster to almost every stanza. Ms. Lemon so beautifully described the works from the confessionalist movement as "their lives were splattered all over the pages." And that is what's happening in the poem. Bishop opens up the gate guarding her house, yet bolts the door. She brings us in, and keeps us out.

So, Miss Elizabeth Bishop, I feel you. Girl, do I get it. Many times I've lost things, places, and people. But, let me tell you, it is ok for it to be a disaster. In the words of Victoria Erickson, "it's ok to shatter. You can't possibly hold more light or beauty unless you break first." So yeah, losing things may be inevitable. But you don't have to shove your distress down and try and convince yourself and everyone else that it doesn't matter. It's ok for it to be a disaster.