{"id":2145,"date":"2013-03-15T16:11:35","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T20:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stlydias.org\/blog\/?p=2145"},"modified":"2013-03-15T16:14:49","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T20:14:49","slug":"it-isnt-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/it-isnt-me\/","title":{"rendered":"It Isn’t Me"},"content":{"rendered":"
by James Lasdun<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t me<\/em>, he\u2019d say,<\/div>\n
stepping out of a landscape<\/div>\n
that offered, he\u2019d thought, the backdrop<\/div>\n
to a plausible existence<\/div>\n
until he entered it;\u00a0it\u2019s just not me<\/em>,<\/div>\n
he\u2019d murmur, walking away.<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not quite me<\/em>, he\u2019d explain,<\/div>\n
apologetic but firm,<\/div>\n
leaving some job they\u2019d found him.<\/div>\n
They found him others: he\u2019d go,<\/div>\n
smiling his smile, putting<\/div>\n
his best foot forward, till again<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

he\u2019d find himself reluctantly concluding<\/div>\n
that this, too, wasn\u2019t him.<\/div>\n
He wanted to get married, make a home,<\/div>\n
unfold a life among his neighbors\u2019 lives,<\/div>\n
branching and blossoming like a tree,<\/div>\n
but when it came to it,\u00a0it isn\u2019t me<\/em><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

was all he seemed to learn<\/div>\n
from all his diligent forays outward.<\/div>\n
And why it should be so hard<\/div>\n
for someone not so different from themselves,<\/div>\n
to find what they\u2019d found, barely even seeking;<\/div>\n
what gift he\u2019d not been given, what forlorn<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

charm of his they\u2019d had the luck to lack,<\/div>\n
puzzled them\u2014though not unduly:<\/div>\n
they lived inside their lives so fully<\/div>\n
they couldn\u2019t, in the end, believe in him,<\/div>\n
except as some half-legendary figure<\/div>\n
destined, or doomed, to carry on his back<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

the weight of their own all-but-weightless, stray<\/div>\n
doubts and discomforts. Only sometimes,<\/div>\n
alone in offices or living rooms,<\/div>\n
they\u2019d hear that phrase again:\u00a0it isn\u2019t me<\/em>,<\/div>\n
and wonder, briefly, what they were, and where,<\/div>\n
and feel the strangeness of being there.<\/div>\n

–Read at St. Lydia’s on March 10, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by James Lasdun It isn\u2019t me, he\u2019d say, stepping out of a landscape that offered, he\u2019d thought, the backdrop to a plausible existence until he entered it;\u00a0it\u2019s just not me, he\u2019d murmur, walking away.   It\u2019s not quite me, he\u2019d explain, apologetic but firm, leaving some job they\u2019d found him. They found him others: he\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2145"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2147,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145\/revisions\/2147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}