![](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/davidthedreamer10.jpg\")
<\/a>In the wake of it, after the futile wish for an undo button has burned itself out, we find in its ashes one thing only: Trembling with desire for forgiveness and self-forgiveness, we long for an apology so vast and powerful as to subsume the irreversibility of time \u2014 an apology grand enough to allay all the vulnerabilities of being human, fallible, and famished for connection. <\/p>\n
That longing comes alive in this consolation of a poem by Ellen Bass:<\/p>\n
\nHOW TO APOLOGIZE<\/strong>
\nby Ellen Bass<\/em><\/p>\nCook a large fish \u2014 choose one with many bones, a skeleton
\nyou will need skill to expose, maybe the flying
\nsilver carp that\u2019s invaded the Great Lakes, tumbling
\nthe others into oblivion. If you don\u2019t live
\nnear a lake, you\u2019ll have to travel.
\nWalking is best and shows you mean it,
\nbut you could take a train and let yourself
\nbe soothed by the rocking
\non the rails. It\u2019s permitted
\nto receive solace for whatever you did
\nor didn\u2019t do, pitiful, beautiful
\nhuman. When my mother was in the hospital,
\nmy daughter and I had to clear out the home
\nshe wouldn\u2019t return to. Then she recovered
\nand asked, incredulous,
\nHow could you have thrown out all my shoes?<\/em>
\nSo you\u2019ll need a boat. You could rent or buy,
\nbut, for the sake of repairing the world,
\nbuild your own. Thin strips
\nof Western red cedar are perfect,
\nbut don\u2019t cut a tree. There\u2019ll be
\na demolished barn or downed trunk
\nif you venture further.
\nAnd someone will have a mill.
\nAnd someone will loan you tools.
\nThe perfume of sawdust and the curls
\nthat fall from your plane
\nwill sweeten the hours. Each night
\nwe dream thirty-six billion dreams. In one night
\nwe could dream back everything lost.
\nSo grill the pale flesh.
\nUnharness yourself from your weary stories.
\nThen carry the oily, succulent fish to the one you hurt.
\nThere is much to fear as a creature
\ncaught in time, but this
\nis safe. You need no defense. This
\nis just another way to know
\nyou are alive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nCouple with Maimonides\u2019s framework of repentance, repair, and what true forgiveness takes<\/a>, then revisit Ellen Bass\u2019s perspectival poem \u201cThe Big Picture.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
\u201cHow to Apologize\u201d originally appeared in The New Yorker<\/a> and is published here with the poet\u2019s permission.<\/em><\/p>\n
\ndonating = loving<\/h3>\n
For seventeen years, I have been spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each month composing The Marginalian<\/em> (which bore the outgrown name Brain Pickings<\/em><\/a> for its first fifteen years). It has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, no assistant \u2014 a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your own life more livable in any way, please consider lending a helping hand with a donation<\/a>. Your support makes all the difference.<\/p>\n
\nnewsletter<\/h3>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s permitted to receive solace for whatever you did or didn\u2019t do, pitiful, beautiful human.\u201d Few things in life are more painful than seeing ourselves act in ways orthogonal to our own values, watching helplessly as the consequences of those actions ripple out and hurt others, jolting us awake from the dream of perfection. Even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-life"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-25 12:18:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}