Perhaps We Are Here Just to Say

How the work of Rainer Maria Rilke formed me into who I am today

When we knew we were bringing home our newest pup in December, there was no question what his name would be. It should have occurred to me in particular, one who has spent my whole life correcting people on the pronunciation of my name, that the same would be true for Rilke. Unlike my name, Lore, where the e is not silent but long [Lor-ee], Rilke’s e is pronounced more like an uh sound (which, incidentally, is how Lore is pronounced in its native German, Lor-uh). No one can accuse us of not doing things the hard way around here.

Four months later, Rilke knows his name, but also comes to Bubba, Rilksy, Rilke-Rain, though mostly he comes for treats and ear scratches.

I will never forget the moment I discovered Rainer Maria Rilke, the Austrian poet-philosopher-mystic-doubter-novelist. I was in my college library, the basement, where all the older, musty books were, the less visited part of the library. I spent a lot of time down there, more than a normal student perhaps. I was an English-Literature major, which accounted for some of it, but also a latecomer to college (which is a whole story unto itself), so I was 25 when I stood in the musty downstairs stacks. I was looking for a work by Kierkegaard and somehow stumbled upon Rilke instead, Letters to a Young Poet.

In those pages I met someone who seemed as inwardly conflicted as I felt about the world, God, art, writing, and more. Despite the mentoring style of the letters, here was someone who didn’t pretend to have it all figured out and instead conveyed the need for mystery, wonder, doubt, and curiosity in the writer’s work.

A few years later, in a time of intense doubt and confusion over my own life and future, my mother sent me a greeting card with a well-known quote from Letters on the front. I still have the card and I can truly say, the words on it helped propel me forward into the life I have now: