Poem reminds you to get out more 📝

Common Measure Season One, Newsletter Two.

I wrote this a few months ago, in the dead of winter, during one Ontario’s famous lockdowns.

The only light I get

It’s morning, so there must be sun outside
Whose healing rays, suffused with vitamins, 
Are not, to my sequestered skin, applied.
The only light I get comes from my screens.

The nearby farms—on Maps, I see the fields,
Though I have never been there on two feet—
My stomach has no knowledge of their yield;
The only food I get’s from Uber Eats.

Explanation

I wake up, I grab my phone, stare at it for a while. I generally sleep til 8 and begin work at 8:30; my dream would be to exercise in the morning, but it remains a dream for now. 

So, after I put my phone down, I pick up my laptop, begin reading emails and what we call “pings”—messages sent through our organization’s Slack channel. I often do this for an hour or so before going downstairs for breakfast.

It has been cold recently, another deterrent to ever exiting the confines of my home-office for a walk. Another round of lockdowns in Toronto, so I haven’t even been driving to the office (which, as someone who craves face-to-face, I normally frequent, unlike many of my colleagues—not that I blame them). 

Driving, at least, was an excuse to look at the horizon for a while.

I try to obey a rule my uncle introduced to me: the 20-20-20 rule. For every 20 minutes of screen time, stare at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. 

The meaning of this poem is, at its most general, that: 

the tech which is meant to improve our lives is actually making us less healthy.

The second stanza—which tbh I only added to make the first stanza seem less lonely—is an extension of the logic into food. Processed food is no longer just processed: it’s also delivered! 

I don’t need to drive to the grocery store for a microwave dinner, or to Burgers Priest for my gluttonous blessing. I can remain seated, here at my laptop, open my phone briefly; Uber knows where I am, roughly what I want; I click two or three buttons and my food arrives 20 minutes later.

Lessons

If you are a writer, go for a walk. I often write my favourite poems while I am walking. Ironically, this one I believe I wrote partially in the shower, and partially at my desk.

A couple tricks I have for writing while walking: use an app that you also have on your computer. This could be email drafts, or Google Docs, or Notes on your iPhone. 

However, if you have an ancient iPhone like I do, it will die in the cold, so bring a notepad and a pencil! Those implements are, for all their barbarism, less likely to fail you.

And try the 20-20-20 rule if you are a screen worker like I am! Your eyes will thank you.

And if at all possible, cook and eat your own food. I recognize that this has been intentionally made difficult. 

It is immensely challenging for me—and yet there are relatively few barriers preventing me from doing so. I literally used to be a professional cook, and I still can’t pull it off regularly.

Yet cooking anything yourself will likely be cheaper and healthier, even if you have no clue how to cook. I will strive to do so, and hope you will join me in the striving.

Poem stats | Scansion

8 lines

Iambic pentameter 

Rhyme scheme: abab* dede

Titled after the 4th line

*line 4, I meant “screens” to read as a slant rhyme of “vitamins”—it’s a bit of a stretch, though