Caffeinated Buddha Loves Mary Oliver

It was another hot day in LA…100°+.

After a satisfying meditation (was it though? Can’t remember), I decided to take myself on a movie date.

The first thing that caught my eye was Mary Oliver: Saved By The Beauty of the World

A mere fifteen minutes away, perfect show-time, great indie theatre.

Then—one hour, eight online previews later, and a container of Pine Nut hummus w/almond crackers…
…I finally said yes to the Mary Oliver doc.

Since this rabbit hole process had gobbled up time, I barely had enough left to scramble into something passable and zoom over to Glendale.

On the way there, still feeling the aftereffects of The Odyssey, I began listening to John Gardner’s Grendel.

Gardner’s Grendel is the monster from Beowulf; he whines for his mommy, and he’s darkly funny. That’s really all I got from the short ride to Glendale.

I reminded myself as I walked the five blocks to the theatre that I didn’t need popcorn. My stomach doesn’t like popcorn. Leave the popcorn alone.

I bought a small box of popcorn.

Grendel won.

The guy with the best job in LA, working the snack bar at a Laemelle theatre, sweetly tells me the movie has begun.
I rush down the hall, find my seat in the 80-seat theatre, where seven other people, surely poets themselves, or lovers of Mary, had already settled in.

No one is joking.
No one is on their phones.
Or talking inappropriately.

Like at The Odyssey.

All of them certainly own fountain pens.

This crowd is as serious as a Clam.
They came to watch the moss grow, melt deep into the grass, and fall in love with the world.

I wished I had brought a pen and a dog-eared notebook.

There’s so much I wanted to remember. If you see this film, bring something to write on.

As it was, I pulled out my phone, covertly opened Notes, and wrote down:

The Poetry Handbook
N
Burying mom

N?
Hmmm.
Burying mom?

Mary Oliver was single-minded.
She did one thing.
She hung out and observed nature.

Then wrote about it.

She was not a cultural spokesperson. Even as she became ‘popular’.
She was a poet. She observed nature and life, letting it flow through her heart, pen, and typewriter.

The film is jam-packed with poets discussing Mary’s life and poetry. In each of them, their eyes have a sort of wild attentiveness.

Stephen Colbert can’t make it through his bit. He breaks down reading The Summer Day. It’s a poem he sends to his kids the first day of summer, every year.

At some point, very quickly, I stopped watching passively, far too aware of the connections I was feeling to my life.

That’s the film’s true power.

Then there’s the John Waters factor. How much do I love that he is all over this film? I refuse to say another word.

Fame had pulled Mary from her monk’s cave in Provincetown.
Some people wanted more from her than poems.
They wanted a public figure. A spokesperson. An authority.

The film keeps circling that tension.

In the 80s, Mary was asked why, being a lesbian, she did not write about the AIDS epidemic. She replied, I wish I could, but that will have to be someone else’s job. I write what I write.

That sentiment landed harder than any poem.

She wasn’t refusing the world.

She simply knew her seat assignment.

Mary kept writing about nature because, in her eyes, nature was unappreciated and what she grew up in.

Single-minded, was she. It’s all she knew how to do.

We rarely allow figures like Mary to be themselves.
We expect them to conform to our wishes.
To say all the things we think they should say.

When they become good at one thing, we hand them ten more jobs.

Be political. Be profound.
Be inspirational. Be current.

Stand up for us or for some cause.

Mary quietly answered:
Thanks, but I’ll write about the geese.

She reminded me of stories about Zen teachers.
Students would arrive seeking answers.
And maybe what they got was a burp.

Her critics wanted evolution. Greater complexity.
Something other than just the woods and waters.

With her great acclaim came this public imperative to do something different.
To make what she was writing more complex.
Larger in some way.
To tackle the vast problems facing humanity.

But she didn’t choose nature over the world.
It was simply where her attention kept returning.

I had long run out of popcorn.
I’m happy I bought it.

Driving home, listening to Grendel, I realized something.
Every time someone asked Mary Oliver to become bigger than a poet...
…she became a better poet instead.

That’s harder than it sounds.

Caffeinated Buddha is forever trying to become six different Buddhas before breakfast.

Maybe one thing is enough.

We’ll see.

TV Premiere: Aug. 25th, 9 ET on PBS