“I don’t know” is starting to feel like a poem to me

“I don’t know” is starting to feel like a poem to me

Nearly everything poet Naomi Shihab Nye said during a one-day workshop at First Unitarian Church in Dallas struck me as something I had to write down. Before the first bathroom break, I’d filled a quarter of the lined Amazon Basics notebook placed at my seat at a round table for eight.

Shihab Nye is a Palestinian American poet who lives in San Antonio. She’s relaxed and breezy, her long ponytail tied off to one side. She gets at least as excited about poetry she receives in the mail from six-year-olds as she does about her own work. On this day, she read aloud far more from others than from her own work.

When she did read her poem Innuendo, though, about how she’d like to be remembered, one line made my breath catch: “less thud and more glance." I’ve been trying to be more glance and less thud for the past thirty years, not usually with a lot of success.

But what has stayed with me most from that day was an exercise she used to launch the workshop. She instructed us to write the phrase “I don’t know . . .” at the top of a page in our spiral notebooks. Then just start filling in the blanks.

I don’t know so very many, many things

Something about that prompt opened the floodgates for me. My brain quickly traveled from the mundane to the important and back again. From the basic and concrete to big questions mucking around in the squishiness of my half-formed thoughts, desires and less admirable behaviors.

I wonder what would happen if you tried it.

Here are some of mine—not in any particular order, just as they arrived.

I don’t know . . .

How to truly use Excel.

If I want to retire from freelance work or keep going.

If I’ll regret never really forgiving my brother or making amends with him.

How I slipped into eating more meat than I used to.

How I’ll weather criticism of my first novel.

If I have the guts to write a second book.

If I want to live in New York City for a year as much as my husband does.

When I’ll stop loving playing tennis, or when my body will tell me I’m done.

If aging will make me more compassionate or more defensive and unyielding.

How to pack for a trip without forgetting at least one crucial thing.

How to be a better partner to my recently retired husband.

Whether to get the latest COVID booster before traveling.

Why I let my dad’s call go to voicemail ten days before he died.

How to actually enjoy flying.

What I would do if Shannon moved away.

How to give people the benefit of the doubt.

If I’ll finally make it to Big Bend next year.

If I want to get my face tightened up or age more gracefully.

How to wear button-down shirts without feeling preppy or prissy.

Whether I can lift weights without injuring myself.

How different I’ll be a year from now.

If cooler weather will make me feel like cooking again.

If I’ll put up a Christmas tree this year.

How other people see me.

If my kids know I would walk through fire for them.

When we should finally get a puppy.

If we should get both a puppy and a grown dog.

If I can be gentler—with myself or others.

Whether I should hire a student to teach me how to use social media.

Where so very many countries are located.

How to stop eating after 7 p.m.

These are just some of the things I don’t know.

It feels kind of good to get them out in writing. Like going to confession.

Some of these questions I plan to answer over the next twelve months. Whether to get a puppy, whether I’ll put up a Christmas tree, and whether Big Bend makes it onto my travel list next year.

Of course, many I’ll never answer. Couldn’t answer. Or might not want to stomach the answer to.

I wonder what your questions are. And what, if anything, the questions that pop most quickly to mind tell us about ourselves. Maybe they don’t so much point us toward answers as reveal what matters to us—things we might not even have realized we were thinking about.

I’ve noticed that asking questions of others makes for far more interesting conversation than making statements. Maybe it’s the same when we talk to ourselves?