What Do You Carry?

On fear, love, and the weight we choose to hold

Photo by Michael Mouritz

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about fear—how it settles into the body, how it whispers in the quiet, how it can shape the way we move through the world. My own brain seems particularly wired toward fear. I’ve lived with anxiety and night terrors since childhood, so fear has always been a kind of shadow companion.

What I keep trying to learn and relearn is how to hold that fear without letting it devour me. How to maintain a healthy awareness of what is truly dangerous, while also keeping my heart cracked open to wonder, to awe, to the small and startling goodness of the world.

In September, we read Maggie Smith together, and I keep returning to her work because she understands this paradox so deeply. She has a way of showing us how to carry both fear and love at once, how to marvel at beauty even while the world bares its teeth.

Since last fall, I’ve found I’ve had to work harder at this balance. The fear can feel heavier, more insistent. Maybe you’ve felt that too. Maybe you’ve been carrying more than your share of dread or anxiety. If so, I hope this week’s poem meets you where you are. It’s a reminder that even fear—when we name it, when we carry it with some measure of tenderness—can teach us something about how to live.

What I Carried
by Maggie Smith

I carried my fear of the world
to my children, but they refused it.
 
I carried my fear of the world
on my chest, where I once carried
my children, where some nights it slept
as newborns sleep, where it purred
but mostly growled, where it licked
sweat from my clavicles.
 
I carried my fear of the world
and apprenticed myself to the fear.
 
I carried my fear of the world
and it became my teacher.
I carried it, and it repaid me
by teaching me how to carry it.
 
I carried my fear of the world
the way an animal carries a kill in its jaws
but in reverse: I was the kill, the gift.
Whose feet would I be left at?
 
I carried my fear of the world
as if it could protect me from the world.
 
I carried my fear of the world
and for my children modeled marveling
at its beauty but keeping my hands still—
keeping my eyes on its mouth, its teeth.
 
I carried my fear of the world.
I stroked it or I did not dare to stroke it.
 
I carried my fear of the world
and it became my teacher.
It taught me how to keep quiet and still
 
I carried my fear of the world
and my love for the world.
I carried my terrible awe.
 
I carried my fear of the world
without knowing how to set it down.
 
I carried my fear of the world
and let it nuzzle close to me,
and when it nipped, when it bit
down hard to taste me, part of me
shined: I had been right.
 
I carried my fear of the world
and it taught me I had been right.
I carried it and loved it
for making me right.
 
I carried my fear of the world
and it taught me how to carry it.
 
I carried my fear of the world
to my children and laid it down
at their feet, a kill, a gift.
Or I was laid at their feet.

Writing Prompts:

1. What I Carried - Begin with this phrase and list what you have carried through life (grief, joy, love, shame, hunger, vigilance, rage, wonder). Let one of these open into a longer exploration.

2. Fear as Teacher - Write from the voice of your fear as if it were a teacher giving you lessons. What does it insist you learn? What does it prevent you from learning?

3. Carrying Both - Write about something you carry that is double-edged—fear and love, awe and sorrow, protection and harm. What does it teach you?

4. Setting It Down - Imagine a moment where you’re finally able to release what you’re carrying. What does this release look like? What happens after?

I hope this poem and the prompts help you meet what you’re carrying without judgment. There’s courage in noticing and sharing, even if it’s only with yourself.

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Live Opportunities for Community & Connection

Poetry as Medicine Writing Circles (90 minutes):

• Sunday, October 26th at 10 AM CST — Danez Smith

• Sunday, November 9th at 12 PM CST — Louise Glück

• Thursday, December 11th at 7 PM CST — Margaret Atwood

Poetry as Resistance (60 minutes):

• Sundays at 1 PM CST — October 5th, November 2nd, December 14th

(Links to all sessions will be sent via Zoom the day before. If you are unable to attend live, all poems & prompts will be available the day after the session.)

Writing & Hiking Retreat in the Scottish Highlands

Photo by Bjorn Snelders

If you need something to look forward to—a place to breathe, to write, to remember yourself—I hope you’ll join me next May (2026) in the Scottish Highlands.

We’re staying in a cozy lodge tucked between mountains and lochs, spending our days hiking ancient trails, writing, and exploring the wild, quiet beauty around us. Our time together will be a return to nature, to creativity, to the parts of ourselves we sometimes leave behind.

Our writing circles will be generative and gently guided. Absolutely no prior writing experience is necessary. You can find the full itinerary here: