Exploration Podcast
This is a story about anxieties and coping through them
Transcript:
Hi, I’m Sydney Miller, and this is Exploration. I am a college student whose assignment was to write a response poem. We had 2 choices of poems to respond to, and I chose Megan Fernandez’s poem, Shanghai. In her poem, there is a part in which she sees a cat in Shanghai, in daydreams about this place where she is free in a mythical world. Just like, Megan Fernandez wrote in her poem Shanghai. I have seen my own parts of this world. Perhaps it is not far away places like China. But it is those smaller sections of life that make you wonder. Places filled with hope and new ideas.
Perhaps like me, you’ve had an extraordinary amount of stress and worries that you build up. I tend to stack concerns and forget I was supposed to use coping mechanisms to relieve those mountains. Instead, I take walks and listen to Alex Warren. My walks don’t tend to go incredibly far. Do the town’s limits. But they do tend to range from a mile or three. These walks can take 15 minutes up to 2 hours. To ignore my anxieties, I listen to Alex Warren about his wife. And deceased parents. I find his story is powerful as he went from being homeless to getting support from his wife to publish his music. Years down the road, his song ordinary became a hit in the industry, and his popularity grew.
Every time a person is overwhelmed by stress, it is easy to get lost in daydreams about different worlds and possibilities. We all do this between reading, watching shows, and overall imagining. Megan Fernandez, finding her way. Finding her new worlds. Through a stray cat. Alex Warren, finding his own path with music and memories. I find mine in places that are ready to be discovered in places that seem warmer.
This is my poem Wandering Streets.
Falling in love,
I felt that hollow feeling.
Where your chest is hard stone,
cracking, turning into dust.
Snatching worn boots, phone, and AirPods.
Out the door to something new,
if only they knew.
The road seems as endless as the sky.
I keep walking.
Twist and turns up and down streets.
Autumn leaves fall. And hands turning to ice.
Each step pulling towards the unknown.
How far does the horizon go on?
Pink skies and falling leaves lead me to new discoveries.
Lyrics playing in my head,
and I’m stuck in the middle, frozen in a fire.
Alex Warren sings.
There is an unanswered call.
Unsure if I should run fast
or turn back to the flames.
Street after street. Mile after mile,
the road stretches on.
Footsteps and earthquakes, footsteps like earthquakes.
Heavy and uncertain.
With pain in my heart
to see how far it will take me.
South Almond Street, through Sunset Drive,
to see the sky burst with life on Homestead Way.
Fresh pavement upturned dirt.
Each for new expansions,
town remains defined by lines.
The horizon remains millions of miles away.
The sun rotating millions of worlds,
millions of experiences every second.
Where is the dimension where life is free?
A place is absurd and wondrous.
Stories that can fulfill lifetimes of wonder.
Each step on the pavement sparks curiosity and life.
Where we all go to reincarnate and restart.
I follow the call.
To place unknown.
Somewhere to call home.