Episode 35: The Carnival
Hi everyone, I hope you’re doing as well as you can be today. This week’s poem and episode explore a student’s experience of feeling overwhelmed nearing back-to-school season. August is a complicated month—still summer, yet unofficially labelled the ‘get ready’ month, not unlike the end of December approaching New Year’s Resolutions. As a distraction, our narrator visits their town’s annual end-of-summer festival, where they learn that they can’t “overwhelm their overwhelm” with stimulation. Sometimes, though the best preparation is soaking up every last ounce of summer, we forget that this includes rest (the same way an extra few hours of sleep before an exam will often be more beneficial than a few more hours of late-night studying).
I’ll share it with you now:
We’ll wander around our house
thinking about preparing
while really, unable to think.
We’ll stand in our shower trying
to scrub & rinse away overwhelm
by scribbling those three words
across the flexible fibreglass
in the milky soap-ink of shampoo,
conditioner, hot water & cold:
back to school.
We’ll dry & dress & bike with the traffic,
trying to take a break without brakes
by attending one of those end-of-summer
food, art, and music festivals downtown.
We think: maybe we’ll
support some small businesses,
ride the midway ferris wheel,
have fun around other people having fun,
but
the overwhelm
won’t dissipate…
the air will still
be hot & thick
with breath, BO,
baking, braised beef,
and cloudy colours—either
cotton candy or camera-bright lights
but honestly we’ll be
most overstimulated by
just how many small businesses
need us to purchase their:
blankets, candles, clothes, rugs, antiques,
soaps, toys, clocks, salt shakers, paintings,
jewlery, carvings, poems, ceramics, woodwork,
earthenware, pottery, and glasswork and
to not toss away our
poutine’s sunscreen, pizza’s spine,
butter tart’s blood, hot dog’s coat,
burger’s hat, and ice cream’s pants
or the hot sauce, mustard,
hummus, jam, honey, and spices
that we couldn’t stomach.
It will feel like too many people
content being absent—herded
between distractions
keeping them from knowing
how known they are online—
for example, but wow,
not another rabbit hole.
And then we’re overwhelmed by
the discarding
& rolling-pinned grassy knolls
like dandelion fields of cigarettes,
napkins, wrapping, and foaming
garbage can pillars, and COVID, surely.
I know. Breathe. Phew.
Nowhere is untouched
by unrest. And it’s true
that this is bigger than you
& that somehow, you’re
expected to do school.
But as this unrest
touches your heart, too,
know that stimulation
as escape doesn’t work
& overwhelm cannot be overwhelmed
out of overwhelming you…
If the world feels a carnival
go against the grain:
slow & steady are more than okay.
Fight to keep August
as summer’s days.
Breathe the words in. What do they make you feel or think? How did they connect with your senses? What colours or symbols did you notice? What meaning did you draw? Metaphors? Interpretations? Clarity? Messages?
