Finding encouragement

Hey there—

Taking a little break from our regular how-to advice. Big-picture, things seem to be moving unbelievably quickly.

One thing that means is: advice we’ve been looking forward to sharing in this newsletter… keeps seeming to need revising.

For instance, we’d been looking forward to installments about consumer-protection laws, but — as we wrote here a couple weeks ago — the federal agency that enforces some of those laws is in limbo.

Other protections and safety nets look shaky too: Congress is looking at enormous cuts to Medicaid — which covers 4 in 10 American kids, and the majority of nursing-home care.

There’s a lot more, and not just in health care. Not by a long shot.

I won’t go into a litany here. Either you’re following all this, or trying to avoid it. It’s a lot.

I’m looking for encouragement — for courage — where I can find it. And I figure maybe you are too.

So this week, I just want to share one place I’ve found a little, a memory:

When I started An Arm and a Leg in 2018, I had to create a tiny little corporate entity — which meant choosing a name.

I chose Public Road Productions. Partly because “public road” kind of echoes “public radio,” the professional world I come from.

But especially because, in my mind, it brings up the poet Walt Whitman.

The phrase “the public road” comes up in his poem “Song of the Open Road” — which gets recited at a lot of weddings and became a favorite of mine when I was in college.

And it shows up in one of my favorite parts of the epic “Song of Myself,” in section 46:

No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.

This section continues, with the poet offering to mentor and help a young companion, and it concludes:

Sit a while dear son,
Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,
But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.

Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

Whitman is saying: Have courage. Keep going. I see you.

Starting a new, uncertain enterprise, I needed that message. I printed out section 46, and taped the paper to the wall above my desk.

A few years later, my family moved. I don’t know where that printout went.

But I just printed out a fresh copy, and I’m looking for some tape.

We’ve got a new episode of An Arm and a Leg out tomorrow. This theme of encouragement comes up there. I hope you’ll like it.

For now, I’ll ask you: Where are you finding courage? Comments are open here. Or you can just reply to this email.

Thanks! Till next time,

Dan