It’s Not That, It’s Never That by Mary Ann Samyn

Have you ever gotten younger as you’ve gotten older? Maybe just on and off. Or maybe a little at a time and more and more. Used to be, I wondered about this. Not anymore. I can think of a famous poet and how it was true for her. Just look at the pictures. But I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want to be like anyone in particular. Another famous poet let me in on that. Don’t be like anybody. If there’s a secret, that’s it. 

So now I’ve got the cutest barrettes in my hair, and I did that long ago, also. Not quite right then, or now. The angles are off, but cute anyway. Cute enough.

Nowadays, someone asks for my opinion and I give it. Stop yelling. What would be the harm? I’m at the age where I have a fair amount of experience in these matters, despite appearances (the barrettes, etc.). Ask me a question and I’ll answer. 

Windy days like today are especially good for perspective and I enjoy being jostled on my walks and watching the dog’s fur fluff up, both of us in a storybook or maybe an English novel, but either way the feeling is long ago, which is a feeling I quite like and would cultivate if only I knew how.

I suppose the barrettes are one attempt. And wearing an apron when I bake. And maybe baking in general. And of course lights low and early to bed early to rise and reading and staring off and probably the way I say let me think as I put my finger to my forehead though no one is stopping me now. 

I take the best selfies, which is a new thing, not an old one, of course, but what I capture is earlier. I can never quite relax when someone else is taking the picture, but I’ve always played alone just fine and that’s where I look out from when I’m the one holding the camera. 

One refrain I heard as a child was a plea from my mother to my sisters: “won’t someone play with Mary Ann?” and maybe I did want this, probably so, but not as much as she did. Familiar story: everyone thought you were one person but you were actually someone else. 

Now I can be myself almost full-time. There’s a lot of energy there. I’m getting older and feeling younger. I eat a chocolate Santa to help me think this through. Then I eat a star. My thinking requires these things. That’s child logic, but it also happens to be true. I knew a lot back then and I’m remembering it. 

We all have wounds and mine aren’t particularly interesting but I do tend to them because who else is going to and nothing works so well. 

Mary Ann Samyn is the author of six collections of poetry, including Air, Light, Dust, Shadow, Distance (42 Miles Press Prize, 2017) and My Life in Heaven (Field Prize, 2012). She teaches in the MFA program at West Virginia University and lives in West Virginia and Michigan. 

7 April 2022