STAY
by Kim Addonizio

So your device has a low battery & seems to drain faster each day.
Maybe you should double your medication.

You might feel queasy, but also as if the spatula flattening you to the fry pan
has lifted a little.

So your breath comes out scorched, so what.

Inside, trust me on this,
there’s a ribbon of beach by a lake,

in the sand, fragments of a fossilized creature resembling a tulip.

Back in the Paleozoic, online wasn’t invented yet
so everyone had to wander alone & miserable through the volcanic wastes

or just glue themselves to a rock hoping someone would pass by.

Now you can sob to an image of your friend a continent away
& be consoled.

Please wait for the transmissions, however faint.

Listen: when a stranger steps into the elevator with a bouquet of white
roses not meant for you,

they’re meant for you..

Kim Addonizio, “STAY” from Now We’re Getting Somewhere. Published by W.W. Norton and used by permission of Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents. (buy now)

It's the birthday of writer Arthur Conan Doyle (books by this author), born in Edinburgh, Scotland (1859). He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and there he met Joseph Bell, his favorite professor. Bell taught his students how to make a successful diagnosis through observation and deduction.

After graduating, Doyle opened his own practice and wrote fiction in his spare time. In 1887 he published A Study in Scarlet, a mystery featuring a character based on his old professor: the detective Sherlock Holmes. He ended up writing 56 short stories and four novels with the famous detective, including The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902).

Doyle said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” and Sherlock Holmes said to his sidekick, Dr. Watson, "You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion."

It was on this day in 1967 that a show featuring a kindly man in a cardigan and blue sneakers debuted on public television and introduced millions of schoolchildren to the concepts of peace, patience, and diversity. “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” would go on to become one of the longest-running children’s program on television.

The show was the brainchild of a Protestant minister and puppeteer named Fred Rogers (books by this author), who believed children needed a show that placed an emphasis on values, tolerance, self-control, and self-esteem. Rogers started as a puppeteer on a show called The Children’s Corner in Pittsburgh, then moved the show to Toronto for a few years, and then back again. Rogers created indelible characters like Henrietta Pussycat who lived in a small yellow and orange schoolhouse, and X the Owl who lived in an old oak tree in what became known to millions of children as “The Neighborhood.”

Rogers began each show by entering a door into his fictional home, hanging up his jacket, putting on one of his many cardigans, and trading his dress shoes for blue sneakers. He sang songs, led children on field trips to factories and restaurants, and even did crafts and played music. He spoke directly into the camera and often dealt with serious subjects like war, divorce, death, and competition. Rogers said, “The world is not always a kind place. That’s something all children learn for themselves, whether we want them to or not, but it’s something they really need our help to understand.”

Fred Rogers’s mother knitted all of the cardigans he wore on the show. One of them is hanging, right now, in the Smithsonian Museum. On his continued popularity with children Fred Rogers said, “One of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self. I also believe that kids can spot a phony a mile away.”

Laurence Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, on this date in 1907. He was one of the greatest English-speaking actors of the 20th century. He was also a director, and he founded the National Theatre of Britain.

Olivier was the youngest actor ever to be knighted (1947, at age 40), and he was the first actor to be made a peer of the realm; he became Baron Olivier of Brighton in 1970. Lord Olivier died peacefully, in his sleep, in 1989.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

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