On Wild Geese and being different…

There is no other way that I can say it. I love ‘Wild Geese’. I have read the poem countless times since I first encountered it, and each time I read it, it moves me just a little bit more; I fall in love with it just a little bit more. It has that strange power over me- it simply gives me goose-bumps and every time I read Mary Oliver’s passionate address of sorts, I can almost picture her, standing on a high place, declaring non-conformity to the world.

How many times have you stopped yourself from doing something just because it did not seem right in the eyes of the world?

How many times have you kept quiet or hidden who you really are from the world, because you were afraid that you would not be accepted?

How many times have you felt guilty or self-reproachful for being different from the majority, for being the odd one out in the face of society?

How many times have you chided yourself and hated yourself for being imperfect and just not good enough?

How many times have you felt like a misfit?

You do not have to be good, says Mary Oliver. You do not have to be ‘good’ because what is the definition of good anyway? What does being ‘good’ entail? What does it take to be ‘right’?

 Every time I read ‘Wild Geese’ I am simply overcome by the feeling of freedom that it gives me. She emphasizes that there is no point in regret, or beating oneself up for not being ‘good’, for being different or for not conforming to the pressures and the boundaries of society. Her lines about crawling through the desert on your knees are a painful yet poignant image of the pointlessness of feeling guilty. Her words, almost like a conversational piece of advice that one would give us personally, are enough to lift us out of the pit of self condemnation that we have put ourselves in, simply for being different from the rest.

Each one of us is different from the other; hence each one of us is likely to feel the same sense of self loathing for being so. Through her poem, Mary Oliver calls out to each one of us therefore, to stop worrying about sticking to convention, and to let ourselves go. She wants us to only let the ‘soft animal of our body love what it loves’. This particular line, when I read it first, seemed to be directly connected to the ‘issue’ of homosexuality and the entire social stigma of alienation and differentiation that it may involve. However, I realized that it is applicable to anyone- anyone, who happens to love anyone or anything that is different from what seems to be ‘accepted’.

I feel a strong connection to the poet when she invites us to share our despair with her. It seems like she is a familiar friend, giving me a reassuring pat on my shoulder, understanding my misery of feeling like a misfit, and asking me softly to share my misery with her, so she too can share hers with me. For a brief second, I feel like she can read into my mind in that line, seeing all my miseries, identifying her own sadness with mine. She is no stranger to pain. I can actually get a peek into her despair, in the sheer heaviness of that line. Since her poem is addressed to a general reader and not any particular person, I get an essence of how universal pain is. It is something which her readers across the world feel all too well.

 While we are sharing our stories of pain and misery with each other, however, she reminds us that the world still exists. She brings us away from our melancholy by gently pointing out to us that the world is there for us, still beautiful, still pristine, no matter how sad we are. She tells us that it is when we are lonely, separated from the rest of mankind by our self described differences, that the world makes itself available to our imagination. It is then when we can actually let our creativity rule our world and set us free from the cage of conformity in which we were locking ourselves. She paints this beautiful image of pretty landscapes and wild geese calling out to us when we are at our lowest point, thus telling us that it is actually alright to be alone, and different. She calls out to us, no matter who we are; no matter how lonely we are, telling us that we will be just fine, for in all our loneliness, we still have our place in this complex world. In spite of all our differences and perplexing individualities, we still play our part in this marvelous drama called life.

Just like all the other seven odd billion people living on the earth, I too feel like a misfit. I too have my despair. I too have done things that have made me want to crawl through desert sands on my knees in repentance. But somehow, after reading ‘Wild Geese’, I feel at peace with being different. I feel alright with being me. It is for this very reason that I will always hold on to the words of this poem like a motto in my heart. I will walk through life loving who and what I love, because it is perfectly alright to do so. Because I do not have to be good. Because I dare to be different.