Yes.

So it’s a dark, chilly Saturday afternoon and I’m listening to a 1999 recording of Annie Lamott called “Word by Word,” a 2-ish-hour lecture/talk about writing she gave in Austin, Texas after Bird by Bird came out. In the beginning, she talks about a poem by Mary Oliver called “Wild Geese.” It’s long a favorite of mine, but for whatever reason, struck a particularly resonant chord with me today.

Here it is:

Wild Geese
By Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.