I'm Maggie Smith, and this is the slowdown.

On this planet, at this very moment, so many things are happening all at once.

In these next few minutes, as you listen to this episode, babies will be born.

Couples will get married.

People will receive incredible news about their health or their careers or the art they've been making.

So many big, bright, beautiful things are happening at this very moment.

None of them headline news.

We won't even know about them.

While you listen to and absorb the poem I'll share with you

today, people will finish marathons and collapse into the arms of people they love. People will adopt

pets who lick their faces with gratitude on the car ride home. People will work up the courage to play

their first original song on guitar at an open mic. Right now, somewhere in the world, flowers

are opening for the first time, birds are taking flight for the first time,

spiders are weaving their first webs. It's mind-boggling and uplifting to think about all

of the celebration-worthy things that are happening at this very moment. But also, at any given moment, people are dying, or being

gravely injured, or receiving terrible, life-altering news. It can be overwhelming to think about this

flip side of the coin, but that is what today's poem invites us to do.

This poem has me thinking more and more about chance and about our circumstances.

It also has me thinking about the ways we can take care of one another, and how we can and must do better.

As James Baldwin famously wrote,

The children are always ours.

The Situation in Our City by Sianna Rouse.

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