Maggie Smith - Keep moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

PRAISE FOR KEEP MOVING

Keep Moving offers a bouquet of generosities in one hand, and a bouquet of soft but firm honesty in the other A promise that what doesnt get better sometimes gets easier. And that, too, is worthy of celebration.

Hanif Abdurraqib, author of Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest

I read this book in one sitting during one of the most difficult weeks of my life This isnt lofty self-help stuff; she doesnt speak from above. Instead, she speaks next to you, whispering right in your ear that we are all in the trenches together. Every single page of this book made me breathe a little deeper and feel a little less alone.

Amanda Palmer, singer, songwriter, musician, author of The Art of Asking

Candid, lyrical, and full of empathy, this is a book that feels vital and welcome in these times A stunning and wise piece of work.

Sinad Gleeson, author of Constellations

Maggie Smiths mantras are a faithful and forgiving companion, coaxing us through the darkness and toward our own resilience.

Rebecca Soffer, coauthor of Modern Loss

I wish Id had a copy of Keep Moving when my first marriage ended. It would have consoled my fears about being alone. Maggie Smith writes so honestly without being brutal, and she shows readers hope while avoiding the saccharine. To experience relief from a book is a rare and wonderful thing. Keep Moving gave me that relief.

Bella Mackie, author of Jog On

Maggie Smiths voice is the one I hear in my head, the one that keeps me going when I dont feel I can. And now, with this book, she has gifted the entire world with that particular brand of magic.

Jennifer Pastiloff, author of On Being Human

I lived this book in real time. I was going through something hard and heartbreaking and every day Id log on to social media [to] read what you now hold in your hands: truth and pain and empathy and the wisdom that comes with living. We keep moving. I kept moving. So can you. I will carry copies of this beautiful gift of a book in my pockets and give them to everyone I know.

Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life

ALSO BY MAGGIE SMITH

Good Bones

The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison

Lamp of the Body

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Copyright 2020 by Maggie Smith

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Interior design by Oliver Munday

Cover design by James Iacobelli

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Smith, Maggie, 1977 author.

Title: Keep moving : notes on loss, creativity, and change / Maggie Smith.

Description: New York : One Signal Publishers / Atria Books, 2020. | Summary: By Pushcart award-winning poet Maggie Smith, a collection of quotes and essays on facing lifes challenges with creativity, courage, and resilienceProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019055475 (print) | LCCN 2019055476 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982132071 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781982132088 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Resilience (Personality trait)Quotations. | Creative AbilityQuotations. | CourageQuotations.

Classification: LCC BF698.35.R47 S55 2020 (print) | LCC BF698.35.R47 (ebook) | DDC 155.2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055475

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055476

ISBN 978-1-9821-3207-1

ISBN 978-1-9821-3208-8 (ebook)

FOR YOU

W hen my daughter was in second grade, she struggled with anxiety at bedtimeabout death in particular, but also about the future in general. I would tuck her in at night and lie with her in the dark, holding her, listening.

When will I die? shed ask. Will you definitely die before me because youre older?

What could I tell her? There are no guarantees in this life. But she was eight years old. Id smooth her hair from her face and try my best to find the right words to calm her mind.

Yes, Im sure Ill die before youbut not until Im very old, and youre a grown-up.

The questions kept coming: Will we miss each other when were dead? Will we even know were dead? When will it happen? Will we feel it?

Life is longa long book, I told her, and youre only on the first chapter. Who wants to ruin a book by worrying about the end the whole time? Who wants to know how a book will end?

That would be boring, she said.

And of course, she was right.

Life is a booklong, if were luckyand we write it as we go. The ending isnt written, waiting for us to arrive. Id known this all along, logically, but I hadnt yet felt it.

I thought that I knew my story.

I thought that what I was living was the whole story, but it was only a chapter.

After almost nineteen years together, my ex-husband and I separated. When my marriage endedand with it the life I had knownthe book did not end. Suddenly, there were so many blank pages, so many blank years ahead, to fill. There were days, weeks, when I could hardly get out of bed, hardly eat, but I felt the desire to write. If everything was going to fall apart, I told myself, at least I could create something. I was learning to live a different story, and I needed to find the words for it.

I struggled to write poems during this time. When I write a poem, I dont begin with an idea and then seek the language for it; I begin with language and follow where it leads me. But now I had ideas to work through, stories to tell, and I knew I would need a different kind of writing, a different container for my thoughts.

One morning, I wrote a goal for myselfjust a couple of sentencesand posted it on social media. The next day, I wrote another one. Since then, I have written a note-to-selfan affirmation, an encouragement, a self-directiveevery day.

The question I asked myself over and over in those first days and weeks was, What now? And that question inspired the last sentence of every goal: Keep moving. I had no idea what would happen next, what the next chapter would hold, but I had to get myself there.

The ending of one thing is also the beginning of another. What is the next adventure? There is room enough in this lifewith its many endings, its many beginningsfor things you could not have imagined last week or last year or ten years ago.