Rules of Engagement

Hey team, it's Betsy. I switched phone carriers and I switched phones and I moved in the last few weeks. So we'll see if this works. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. It's morning where I am. And unless you are, I don't know, in Puerto Rico or east of there, it is morning where you are. Good morning. Speak wonder. And it is. I am now in Silver Spring, Maryland and it is a little rainy and overcast. We are on the 16th floor of a 17 story building, which means we. Hi, Shannon. Which means we have a view and it's lovely.

It's lovely. I can see steam and mist rising up from Rock Cake Park. From where I am, the lake shores of Erie, Pennsylvania. I did not know you were in Erie, Pennsylvania. There's a whole Great Lake. There's a whole great Lake. Pennsylvania's great. So today this thing is a little high. Just pretend I'm wearing a hat or there's like thought bubbles going over my head, I guess. Today we are going to talk about my guidepost number two. Just things I've learned along the way about being human things.

I think they're not exactly rules of engagement. I don't know what distinguishes a rule of engagement really because rainy and overcast in Eerie as well, because this could be a guidepost for me because. But guideposts are. Hey, if you remember this, you can get a different perspective. Rules of engagement are more. If you this. These are things to do. These are things to do, not things to think about or remember to change your perspective and number. My rule, my guidepost. Sorry, guidepost number two is laughter and poetry will save the world.

They are necessary. I consider comedy and poetry to be necessary. They're not perhaps sufficient. They're perhaps not sufficient to changing the world, making the world better, etc, etc. But they are as far as I am concerned, completely necessary. A vast great lake. Yes, Great Lakes are a little bit like being at the ocean, but without the salt and usually without a lot of warm water because sometimes when you're at the ocean it's warm. So comedy and poetry will save the world. Comedy is an art form, stand up comedy in particular, as well as comic theater or what have you.

Okay, this is driving me nuts how tall I am. So I am gonna move some things. You're gonna. I don't know what this means for everybody. Sorry to do this in the middle of the live stream, but I just can't concentrate with so much white space above my head. I think comedy is an important and crucial art form in part because laughter Helps release fear. Laughter helps release embarrassment. Laughter helps create social ties and social unity. Laughter. Physiologically, there are studies about this, like, laughter helps your body know that things are okay.

We laugh when we're nervous in part because we're trying to release the nerves so we can keep thinking, thinking so we can get to be more present. Laughter is healing. Literally. I don't just mean, oh, it's, you know, a metaphor. Healing. No, physically, our bodies do better if we get enough laughter. If I am anxious, if I am having a rough time, and especially if I'm scared, I think to myself, where can I find someone or something funny to watch, read or listen to? And I do that because I know that it is like a chiropractic adjustment for my nervous system to laugh to get enough laughter in.

Let's see. Oh, you are former English majors. That is fantastic. Laughter and poetry will change the world. Absolutely they do. They will change the world and save the world. Oh, you're going to poetry event. See poetry. I'm going to get to poetry in a second. I'm not done with comedy. I think comedy is an underrated performing art. I think stand up comics are brilliant. I love music. I love music. I listen to a lot of music. I am very much a specialist with music. I love the artists I love. It takes a while for me to warm up to a new artist.

Occasionally I get struck by lightning. Most of the artists I love most, I was struck by lightning at some point when I heard their music. John Hyatt falls into that category. Just struck by lightning. But I am not someone who says, you know, it's Friday night, let's just go to the local tavern that has live music and listen to some live music. I don't care who it is, I am not that person. Confession, right? I kind of wish I were that person. But rule of engagement number one, love what you love.

I wish I were that person. But I'm not. But if you said to me, hey, it's Friday night, let's just go to the comedy club, I will not ask you who's on. I will just say, sure, let's go, let's go. Oh, open mic night. You betcha. Because, side note, I also love high school theater, even if no one I know is in the production. I was a theater kid in high school. I know, shocking. But also I was a theater minor in college, for that matter. But also, I love how awkward it is. Side side note, I did one time, I think it was Minnetonka High School, they were doing A production of Grease.

And I don't know why, but I went. This was 25 years ago. Maybe I just went. I didn't know anybody at Minnetonka High School. I think I was at loose ends one weekend night and I had seen a sign and I was like, whatever word you think goes before it. Whatever, let's go. So I went. And they were using golf carts as grease lightning, you know, as the cars for the racing and for the drive in. And there is the famous scene at the drive in where Sandy and Danny. Danny makes a move on Sandy. She gets offended and slammed.

What kind of girl do you think I am? And sort of leaves. And Danny, in a huff, sort of, you know, he's stranded at the drive in, branded a fool, what will they say Monday at school, etc. Etc. I should do that sometime for karaoke. But in this version, in his golf cart, Sandy storms off, he sings his song and then he's mad and he backs up in a huff and he drives off in a huff. But this kid, when he backed up in a huff, he rent a giant hose in the, in the, in the scene, you know, the, the canvas, painted canvas thing that was behind him.

And it was one of the best moments of my theater going career was seeing seeing that kid rip that hole and just knowing as a theater kid, like, what that was and what that was like. I've never forgotten it and I loved it so much. Well, yeah, I know high school depends on the high school and it depends on the program. And now lots of fancy places. Les Mis. I mean, there was no Les Mis. There were 150 kids doing Oklahoma. My senior year. I was on Teller for those who are curious. So it was fabulous.

I feel a little bit the same way about open mic nights in that it can be awkward, right? I am. The audience wants people to succeed. Like, the audience is rooting for you. If you're at the open mic night, we are rooting for you. We want you to do well. But sometimes people just bomb. And comedians have to bomb a thousand times. It's one of the reasons I'm so intrigued by it as an art form. Because you have to be so bad at it so publicly for so long before you get good. And I am. I watch those comedians the way I watch Back of the Pack marathoners, like with my heart in my throat, a little weepy, like, so impressed with people who are doing that.

So I, I love comedy and I think our ability to. I think you know a lot about somebody by their ability to laugh at themselves by their ability to laugh at the world. This was a gift from my mother. I hope. Happy Mother's Day. To everybody who celebrated condolences and commiseration to those who were in my situation. My mother's passed away and I'm not actively. I'm not parenting young people. If you don't laugh, you're going to cry. And I have maintained the ability to laugh easily and well and heartily at myself and the world in ways that are positive and not negative or mean.

Like if you. People who are too scared to laugh scare me. I don't know how to inter. Like. Humor is one of my love language. It's one of my top values. If you do not know if you're too scared to laugh. And that's what I think people who are kind of humorless are. Is just too scared, too locked down to even laugh. That makes me nervous because I don't know what's going on. So comedy will save the world. I did most of this time on comedy. I'm also going to talk about poetry because they're both in there.

Poetry also not a lost art form. There's so many wonderful poets out there right now, but there is such a. An untapped audience for poetry. I read poetry every day. I read it every night before I go to bed. Recent poets I've read, some of whom I liked better than the. More than others. Kava Akbar. I read everything he did. He's in recovery. He wrote the book Martyr, which was on the short. You know, the finalist for the National Book Award last year, beat out by James. Also a brilliant book. Side note, just won the Pulitzer, so that might be a giveaway.

Kava Akbar. Oh, gosh. Danez Smith from St. Paul, amazing poet. Just read one of his volumes. I am reading a book called 100 Happy Poems. I like to read anthologies. It's one of the ways I find new poets. And if I like the theme, then I like the theme. I just. One of the books I read this year was an entire volume of poetry about trees. Now, a lot of these volumes especially focus on poems where you can get them for free because the licensing rights or whatever you call it, the copyright is run out or whatever.

Fine old poems are great. Jane Hirschfeld is one of my favorite poets of all time. Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets of all time. Years ago, I loved the one. You know, those few, that handful of poems by Mary Oliver that everybody knows and loves because they're brilliant, led me to say, you know what? Maybe I'll just read some Mary Oliver. And I read Mary Oliver. And I had this awakening. This was maybe 15 years ago, certainly long before I was mayor, because poetry. I wove poetry into being mayor.

We had poets read, poems read, or poets read, or both. At my inauguration, there was. At my inaugural ball, every speech I gave had poetry woven into it. It was a commitment. My chief of staff, John Stiles, and I are both love poetry. And so we just said, let's just make it part of what we're doing. We were in the process of putting together a Minneapolis poet laureate when I got fired, so. But poetry is amazing. I was saying something about Mary Oliver. I realized from reading that volume of poetry by Mary Oliver, that poetry that resonated with me, I loved.

And it really resonated with me. And it spoke to me right here. Maggie Smith, not the actress, but the poet, amazing poet I love. Maggie Smith resonated with me right here, Just spoke to me. And when you go especially used bookstores with the poetry, but any, Any store that has a significant poetry section, I'm looking at you. City Lights Books in San Francisco. Huge poetry section. I meditated there. I literally just sat there staring at the shelves. I was so moved by how much poetry they had available.

There's so much poetry in the world. Why would I waste time on poets I thought I should like or poetry that did not resonate with me? Robert Frost, I'm sure, is a brilliant poet. Doesn't speak to my. Some poems of his have occasionally. But I tried to read a volume of Robert Frost, and it just did not speak to me. Now, reason or a season. There may be some season where Robert Frost speaks to me, but I haven't found it yet. And so I just started gathering poets and poetry now in this new place. My volumes of poetry are in our china cabinet, on the shelves of the china hutch out in our dining room area, along with some other art.

You know, there's a shelf of stuff and then a shelf of poetry and then a shelf of beautiful objects and then an art and then a shelf of poetry, because it's such an important art form to me. And I know we're at time, but I'm still going to take a couple minutes to talk about poetry. What I love about poetry is how spare it usually. Not always, but how spare it usually is. And poetry has words in the silence that we get to fill in for ourselves. But I don't fill it in with words. I fill it in with feeling and.

And understanding and connection to the Rest of the world poetry is. You know, if it were a painting. Not all poetry is spare, but poetry has fewer words than prose. So that's what I'm trying to get at here. One line, one line, one line. Stroke, stroke, stroke. That. All of a sudden there's an entire portrait of a landscape or a panther or whatever it is that somebody's painting or sk. Sketching. But when my eyes look at that painting or sketch, it fills in the colors. It's as though a sketch poetry is like a sketch where you fill in the colors by how you feel when you read it.

It's amazing. And it asks different things of our brain than prose does or spoken word does or comedy does or theater does. It asks something different from my brain. There's probably data to back that up. And I love what it asks of my brain all the time. And you don't have to understand the poem if you. If you're stretching yourself to try. What does this mean? It's a little bit like those. You know, those. They were especially popular in the 90s. Again, where you have to look at it and you have to relax your eyes until the 3D image becomes apparent.

It looks like a bunch of. Just static until you relax your eyes, and all of a sudden it's a panther coming from the jungle. Apparently I'm thinking about panthers a lot today. Poetry is like that. If I relax my brain and I just let myself read it, my body understands the meaning before my brain does. The parts of my brain that aren't necessarily executive function know what the poetry is telling me before anything else does. If I'm stretching to understand a poem, I'm not doing it my favorite way.

There are poems where it's just pretty clear. You know, they're saying something. But the words are so clever. The words are so important, you know, they're strung together in such a way that something becomes clear that was unclear before in a different way than the relax and see the panther emerging. But I've backed far enough away that I can see the entire Monet. If you get too close to a Monet, you can just see little brush strokes. But if you pan all the way back, you can see the full picture.

Sometimes they use words like that. Like if I. They help me pan myself back so I can see the picture of what the poem's trying to tell me. I am trying to use words to explain something that is not words, even though poetry is words. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic is trying to figure out how to explain words that are words in a new way. I love poets and poetry so much, and sometimes it doesn't speak to me. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I know that they were trying to get at here. But other times, other times it is just such a treat to read the poetry.

And I like to do it before bed, sometimes in the morning. There have been phases in my life where I've read poetry in the morning. I don't read a lot of poetry at once. Like, I don't just sit there and read a poetry book. Other friends do. I'll read two or three or five poems at once and just let them. And I'll dwell with them, is what I do, is I try and dwell with them. So comedy and poetry will save the world. That kind of beauty, that kind of invitation to our hearts, to link our hearts up with our brain in a new way.

But that comedy does and that poetry does that, those two things. I think if more of us, we're able to engage more regularly with them, we could all see the world differently and better and understand our deep connection to each other in a way that is difficult right now. So I offer that to you any way you can add more laughter, especially comedy, and any way you can add more poetry to your life, I recommend. And you don't have to be scared of poetry. It's just poetry. Keep. Keep going till you find someone that resonates with you.

And then let them in. Let those poems in and look from there. Oh, thank you. Speak, wonder. Thank you. I never. I wasn't an English major because I took the required English class in college and realized it would wreck reading if I had to think about it too hard. So I didn't take more English classes because I love to read so much and I didn't like to think too hard while I did it. So thank you. I'm glad that description of why I love it was helpful, but that's one of my guidelines for life. Comedy and poetry, laughter and poetry.

Have great weeks, everybody. And I love west side Story. I can sing the whole soundtrack. I can sing every song from start to finish, from beginning to end. True story. And as an adult, because I loved it as a teenager, I've had to grapple with what that means for me as a white woman who does racial equity work. But that's a story for another day, so have a great one. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. Comedy and poetry. Comedy and poetry Comedy and poetry Comedy and poetry.