Are You Waving or Are You Drowning
While being lost in a deluge of emotions from listening to Loyale Carner’s album oddly titled Not Waving, But Drowning. About more than halfway through an interlude kicks in and gives the back story to the album title. The poem by Stevie Smith of the same name Not Waving But Drowning. In it, she describes a man who drowned and his friends didn’t notice it because he was fond of larking. (For those like me larking is a new word, it means being playful in a mischievous way.)
Upon reflection, to me anyway, the lines not waving but drowning are what most people can relate to. A healthy amount of people are cornerstones and role models for their families, friends, and strangers. They have had successes and to most people that translates to them not having much to worry about. Their lives are perfect. They are always waving in the current of life.
On closer inspection, for some, that isn’t the case. They feel the pressures that come with being that person in someone’s life. The extra responsibilities and being human. A constant feeling of being a fraud. A feeling of the floor being swept from beneath their feet at any moment. They are drowning. Sadly, even when they ask for help people around them don’t believe them, because, well, they don’t look like it. So they drown.
It’s usually shocking to hear about someone who has everything you could possibly wish for taking or throwing their lives away. Deep down they were drowning but nobody could see it. Or even believe it.
We all live in this state where people can’t really tell how we are because for some we are always cheerful and others always somber so to most people we seem okay. The question now is, are you drowning or waving, and can anyone around you tell?
