Hey there, it's Major.

As we take a look back at the slowdown's deep well of episodes,

we're revisiting some standout moments from past hosts.

Today, we're going into the vault to bring you an episode from Tracy K. Smith,

one of the voices that helped shape the slowdown into what it is today.

This is just one of the many special selections

from our archives. I'm Tracy K. Smith, and this is The Slowdown. slow down.

Every life is many lives.

We grow, change, move.

Our circle of loved ones widens and contracts, shifting from one location to another. Sometimes, I return to memories of my past and feel as though I'm peering in upon

strangers, and yet I know something fundamental to the person I now am resides there. I think that's why I love

today's poem, A Friend, by Setshu Foster. Waking up on a sunny morning, the poem's speaker is reminded

not just of the night before, but of huge swaths of his past. The poem gathers pieces of the many

different chapters making up one single life. What else do I appreciate about this poem? I like the

fact that it looks at the ways people migrate from place to place as natural. I like how it contemplates the fact

that our loved ones age and grow vulnerable. It acknowledges the ways we lose touch with the people

we care about. It corrals the mundane and the serious into a single tight space, which is what life feels like,

and it captures a blur of demands, memories, and desires in a way that makes me grateful to be alive.

This is Seishu Foster's untitled poem.

A friend slept on the fold-out couch, going home from Mexico.

We stayed up past midnight, laughing in the kitchen as the children slept,

talking about friends in the Bay Area.

...