The good news is you've sprung yourself from the prison of Hiding. No more holding yourself hostage from the world, no more waiting for some miraculous something to rescue you from misery. You're free, hungry, and determined to prove that the world has in no way kicked your ass.
You're making a comeback—great! But not so great—you're coming back with a vengeance, and it's the vengeance part that's worrisome. You're out to settle a score with the world, to show that you're as tough as any heartache the world throws at you. You're going to try everything, risk anything—being good hasn't kept you from getting hurt, so what have you got to lose by going a little wild? At least you're not sitting home letting life pass you by.
Welcome to Reeling, where you're desperate to grab on to something—anything—that will pull you into feeling alive. This is the stage where you throw yourself into the world with abandon. Blind date with the cab driver's cousin? Sure! Train for a marathon that's one week away? Why not? And while you're at it, run up your credit card at Banana Republic, join two book clubs, a gym, and a cooking class, volunteer at a shelter, plan the company retreat, scam invitations to every event in town, and try any drink or drug that comes your way.
If you're lucky in Reeling, something good will come of your manic attempts to jump-start your life—some class will reveal your vocation, or some party will introduce you to a soul mate. But we've seen Reeling friends stagger straight into pulled hamstrings, bad relationships, nasty gynecological situations, deep debt, and worse.
The initial Reeling impulse is a good one—we want to live again. No matter how much we tried to shut ourselves away in Hiding, we've been unable to resist the powerful pull of instinct, described in Virgil's “The Wave.” We find ourselves joining “all the creatures on earth” in the rush to charge toward life, love, and the possibility of renewal. But as we surge forward in hope, we sometimes forget (or try to pretend we forget) that there's danger ahead—we face the possibility of crashing on the rocks or getting burned by the fire of love. We ought to temper our instinct with a little reason, a little caution—but we just can't be bothered. We're like teenagers in heat.
Which brings us conveniently to our next poem, one that perfectly illustrates this phase of adolescent hunger—the up-and-at'em penis. In “Down, Wanton, Down!” the penis (we'll just call him “Wanton,” like Robert Graves) raises his “angry head” to stare down just about anything, Love or Beauty, man or beast—much to the embarrassment of his superior officer, the speaker, who tries to reason with Wanton (when shouting at him doesn't seem to work). Look, you witless Wanton, the speaker says, you're doing me no favors if you can't distinguish between man or beast! I want Beauty and Love, but they'll never swear loyalty to me if you don't learn to “think fine” and act with a little delicacy.
We're not saying you're sexually out of control in Reeling (although we know plenty of Reelers who once answered to the call of Wanton). We're saying that you're so focused on finding some release, so intent on trying everything until you hit upon happiness, that you lose the ability to choose wisely and thoughtfully. It's like grocery shopping when you're starving—you wind up with a cartful of Pringles and Ben & Jerry's.
Eventually our bad choices catch up with us, but for a while we cruise along our cocky way, convinced we've pulled a U-turn on misery. What's important is to keep moving, fill up the calendar—don't leave any time to moon over past loves or losses. Like the speaker in Andrew Marvell's “To His Coy Mistress,” we can't waste precious hours on silly, idealized notions of happily ever after. We're getting older and less attractive by the second—so let's grab what we can while we can. We'd rather “tear our pleasures with rough strife”—force ourselves into feeling alive—than wait around for some fairy-tale ending we no longer believe in.
The problem is we act tougher than we really are—we do too still believe in fairy-tale endings! We do too want to wait for happiness! This busy little life is just another form of waiting, and we know it. We don't want to keep bouncing around like this forever—we want to swoosh into some sweet spot, some home that's meant just for us. But we don't quite know how to get there, so we try on all kinds of attitudes and poses, like the speaker in Carolyn Creedon's “The Nectarine Poem.” She'll become a nectarine, if that will make Tom happy, or an orange—whatever it takes, she'll change into that colorful, juicy something for Tom. Because she knows that he won't leave his wife for her the way she is now, all serious and needy—“with the silence so big it's a sound/and the wanting so big it's a weight.” Tom wants a delicious something he can devour, not a feminist who tastes like rhubarb. So even though she doesn't completely want to do it, even though she hopes he cracks his tooth biting down on her, even though she knows Tom is nothing but a two-timing truffle, she tries to give him what he wants.
And this is where the bad choices do catch up with you—when you're so out of control with desire that you lose yourself, your reason, your core. You sacrifice your integrity, you do things you'll regret later, all because you want what you want now. You think if you can just grab that brass ring, whatever it is—a boyfriend, a baby, a whopping salary, a bigger home—then you'll stop spinning around on this crazy carousel of desire. Who cares if it means dumping your Birkenstocks for a Wonderbra, dating a milk-toast but marriage-minded guy, kissing up to the boss you detest—you'll do all of it, any of it, if it means you'll finally get to stop searching and wanting.
Like the waitress in Creedon's “Pub Poem,” you make your “yummy heart” the “Special of the Day,” available cheap to anyone who orders it. The infatuated farmer, the lonely marine, the Pub itself—the waitress will give herself to all of them, because she's desperate to feel needed and wanted. Deep down all she really wants is the love of her life, “the man who slipped away,” but if she can't have him she'll take the next-best thing, or the next-to-last thing. And the more she compromises, flinging herself out in all directions, the deeper she falls into emptiness and angst.
Of course we finally fall in Reeling—we're exhausted from trying so hard to substitute activity for fulfillment, to pretend that a busy life equals a meaningful life. We've been holding our breath for what seems like “a million ebbing years,” struggling to emerge in some happier life. And we're determined to keep “fighting the tide” until we get there—we refuse to crumple into Hiding again, crouching in the “back of the Pub,” all tight-lipped and sour like the “dead clams and unconsummated lemons.” No, we are going to get the life we want, dammit, if it kills us. And what do you know—eventually the insane pace of Reeling does knock us flat on our backs.
That's why we love Frank O'Hara's “Poem (Lana ‘Turner Has Collapsed!)”—it lets us laugh at our crazy attempts to outrace unhappiness. Poor Lana Turner (va-va-voom 1950s movie star whose gangster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato was stabbed to death by Lana's teenage daughter, who claimed Johnny had raped her) has collapsed—and who wouldn't if they'd gone through everything Lana had endured! But the speaker in the poem is just as frenzied and harried as Lana must have been—until he learns that LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED! Not glamorous, unstoppable Lana! Heavens, no! Because if she's going down—out in picture-perfect Hollywood—he's going down, Mr. Trotting Along in the hail and snow and traffic. And we're all headed toward collapse, all of us “in such a hurry” believers.
That's where Reeling leaves us, burned out and worn down. We move from telling old Wanton the penis, “Down, boy!” to begging, “oh Lana Turner we love you get up.” Our uncontrollable desire leads to our inevitable crash. Now is the time to remember—living passionately doesn't have to mean being reckless and indiscriminate. We have a brain and a soul (or a spirit, if you will), as well as emotion and instinct—we can use all of these resources to discern our purpose in the world. No, we don't want to live in the repression of Hiding or the abandon of Reeling, but yes, we do want to live committed, meaningful lives.
We're all searching for the kind of balance Elizabeth Alexander describes in “Equinox,” the kind grounded in the physical laws of the universe. The word “equinox” actually refers to the time of year when the sun crosses the earth's equator, so that the length of the day is virtually equal to the length of the night. It's a perfect division of light and shadow.
The grandmother in the poem lies in an equinox of her own, poised between life and death. Like Lana Turner, she has collapsed—but unlike Lana, the grandmother does get up, if only for one last “wild/and eccentric” moment, when she rears back and slaps the nurse. We love the grandmother for that last, defiant slap at death (apologies to the nurse), for hanging on to that fierce will to live. She shows that to achieve balance between Hiding and Reeling we don't have to give up our wildness, our life force. We just have to know when to use it to good effect. We can't spend our whole lives buzzing about like dervishes, but we can't just live like dried husks either. Despite the strokes of loss or disappointment that fell us, we need to keep a vital spirit, full of venom and honey.
Being vital means acting deliberately and thoughtfully, and with a certain playfulness. Sometimes you use a little honey, sometimes you use a little venom, but always you stop to think about your choices. You're not just reacting to loss anymore; you're not just lashing out and grabbing wildly. Moving out of Reeling means growing up, trying to live according to your convictions, allowing yourself a few mistakes and a little disorder in the process. You're learning to be yourself again—not too wanton, and not “too precise in every part,” just human, full of a “wild civility” (Robert Herrick, “Delight in Disorder”).
You're ready to take on the hard work of slowly building who you want to be—and to realize you're not working alone. Each man in Mark Doty's “At the Gym” hoists some burden he's chosen, pushes the weight skyward in an attempt to gain some power over his flesh, “which goads with desire,/and terrifies with frailty.” Each one is scared that he wants so much from life and can be hurt so badly by it. But even though the work for each man feels like his struggle alone, he can see—others have left their “salt-stain spot” on the bench, too, and others will come later.
Like the men at the gym, we're all trying collectively “to make ourselves:/something difficult/lifted, pressed or curled.” And it's not just because of our vanity or because we think we deserve perfect lives—it's something more tender than that. We all want to “sweat the mark/of our presence” into the world, to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We're ready to leave the frenzy of Reeling and start shaping our purpose in the world.