Notes On…Stories Shaping the World

Years ago, I stumbled upon an interview with Marie Howe, and from that moment, her words became part of me. Her poetry has a way of cutting through the noise, of revealing something quiet and raw about what it means to be human. I had a brief encounter with her once, while volunteering at the Zen Center of Contemplative Care in New York City. It was fleeting, just a passing moment, but it felt like a poem in itself. Some people’s words don’t just stay on the page. They stay in you.

One of Howe’s lines that always returns to me is from her poem The Gate: “The world is made of stories, not of atoms.” At first, it sounds bold. But the longer you sit with it, the more it makes sense. Atoms may build the world, but stories are how we live in it. They give things shape. They help us make sense of joy, grief, and everything in between.

In What the Living Do, she writes, “There are stories we tell ourselves to live, and there are stories that others tell us in order to make us live.” That’s where it gets more complicated. Some stories save us. They help us survive. Others, though, are handed to us without consent. Family, culture, expectations. They whisper who we’re supposed to be, what we should want, what we’re allowed to hope for.

But here’s the thing. We can choose. We can notice which stories help us grow and which ones hold us back. We can rewrite the ones that no longer fit.

So maybe it’s worth asking: What story are you living right now? Is it one that’s still true for you? Or is it time to tell a different one?