This, too, is grief

When you lose someone you love, you expect grief. 

Ok, maybe you don't have a full grasp of how grief will be like a tidal wave until it isn't - and sometimes still because it cuts you at your knees or sucker punches you in the gut when you least expect it.

But grief as desperately wrenching as it is in its rawest form - that deep hole in your heart, is not only sadness and anguish.

Of course, everyone has heard of the stages of grief, which by the way were meant to describe a patient coming to terms with her/his own death not that of those bereaved. There is anger. There is denial. All of that along side, in between and at disparate times with the sadness and anguish.

I cannot speak to acceptance - unless you are talking about finally agreeing that your loved one is, indeed, dead - as in not coming back. Maybe. But I think lots of people forestall denial by assuming that they will be reunited at some point in the future or the after world. As I do not hold on to that hope, my denial did have to come to an end - but it lasted a good, long time - when I still saw my sister from the corner of my eye, driving by, escaping death even if it meant abandoning us as well.

But grief is also the aftermath.

This is the part that I don't think people talk about.

It has been a horrible place for me - and I imagine that it is for others as well.

Your life is reconfigured. You are told about the new normal when people can be honest about the fact that it does not get better, just different.

But I was wholly unprepared for the devastation that has been the aftermath in my family.

It's not like a war torn landscape with craters were there used to be houses. That seems so bleak and drastic ... but, sometimes, it really does feel that way.

Not Poetry Thursday but we need some, so here you go

The Optimist

~J. W. Hammond

Who would have the sky any color but blue,

     Or the grass any color but green?

Or the flowers that bloom the summer through

     Of other color or sheen?

How the sunshine gladdens the human heart—

     How the sound of the falling rain

Will cause the tender tears to start,

     And free the soul from pain.

Oh, this old world is a great old place!

     And I love each season’s change,

The river, the brook of purling grace,

     The valley, the mountain range.

And when I am called to quit this life,

     My feet will not spurn the sod,

Though I leave this world with its beauty rife,—

     There’s a glorious one with God!

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on July 11, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Poetry Thursday, life right now for a lot of people

Every Verb is a Lesson in Longing or Dread

~April Freely

Dear Reader, it wouldn’t be a lie if you said poetry was a cover

for my powerlessness, here, on this plane

having ticked off another day waiting for her diagnosis to rise.

As the air pressure picks up, I feel the straight road

curved by darkness, where the curve is a human limit,

where the second verb is mean, the second verb is to blind.

On the other line, my mother sits on her bed

after a terrible infection. Her voice like a wave

breaking through the receiver, when she tells me

that unlike her I revel in the inconclusivity of the body.

+

At the end of the line, I know my mother

accumulates organ-shaped pillows after surgery.

First a heart, then lungs.

The lung pillow is a fleshy-pink. The heart

pillow, a child-drawn metaphor. Both help her expectorate

the costs to the softer places of her body.

After each procedure they make her cross,

the weight of the arm comes down. These souvenirs

of miraculous stuffing other patients on the transplant floor covet,

the way one might long for a paper sack doll made by hand.

Though the stuffing is just wood shavings, one lies

with the doll tight at the crick of an elbow at night.

Copyright © 2020 by April Freely. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 29, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Poetry Thursday, late but timely

For Black Children at the End of the World—and the Beginning

~Roger Reeves

You are in the black car burning beneath the highway

And rising above it—not as smoke

But what causes it to rise. Hey, Black Child,

You are the fire at the end of your elders’

Weeping, fire against the blur of horse, hoof,

Stick, stone, several plagues including time.

Chrysalis hanging on the bough of this night

And the burning world: Burn, Baby, burn.

Anvil and iron be thy name, yea though ye may

Walk among the harnessed heat and huntsmen

Who bear their masters’ hunger for paradise

In your rabbit-death, in the beheading of your ghost.

You are the healing snake in the heather

Bursting forth from your humps of sleep.

In the morning, your tongue moves along the earth

Naming hawk sky; rabbit run; your tongue,

Poison to the filthy democracy, to the gold-

Domed capitols where the ‘Guard in their grub-

Worm-colored uniforms cling to the blades of grass—

Worm on the leaf, worm in the dust, worm,

Worm made of rust: sing it with me,

Dragon of Insurmountable Beauty.

Black Child, laugh at the men with their hoofs

and borrowed muscle, their long and short guns,

The worm of their faces, their casket ass-

Embling of the afternoon, leftover leaves

From last year’s autumn scraping across their boots;

Laugh, laugh at their assassins on the roofs

(For the time of the assassin is also the time of hysterical laughter).

Black Child, you are the walking-on-of-water

Without the need of an approving master.

You are in a beautiful language.

You are what lies beyond this kingdom

And the next and the next and fire. Fire, Black Child.

Copyright © 2020 by Roger Reeves. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 16, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

not Poetry Thursday, extra, for the trees

Epistemology
 ~Catherine Barnett
 
Mostly I’d like to feel a little less, know a little more.
Knots are on the top of my list of what I want to know.
Who was it who taught me to burn the end of the cord
to keep it from fraying?
Not the man who called my life a debacle,
a word whose sound I love.
In a debacle things are unleashed.
Roots of words are like knots I think when I read the dictionary.
I read other books, sure. Recently I learned how trees communicate,
the way they send sugar through their roots to the trees that are ailing.
They don’t use words, but they can be said to love.
They might lean in one direction to leave a little extra light for another
          tree.
And I admire the way they grow right through fences, nothing
stops them, it’s called inosculation: to unite by openings, to connect
or join so as to become or make continuous, from osculare,
to provide with a mouth, from osculum, little mouth.
Sometimes when I’m alone I go outside with my big little mouth
and speak to the trees as if I were a birch among birches.

I have been watching the trees turn for the past few months. Every once in a while, I don't just admire from a far, but I collect. Sometimes I pick up perfect specimens and other times I pick by color or variation. Mostly I have been capturing in photo rather than collecting. But I had the idea that I would put them in my thanksgiving cards.

Some of them have now gotten so brittle, but I think I will include them anyway.

Why should leaves be perfect or retain their color or not get brittle?

I feel like there has a been a war against the leaves raging for the last week. Aggressive leaf collecting, herding, blowing. They don't rake. They ride lawn blowers. Leaf blowers. Leaf. Blowers. Seriously? 


I am lazy about yard work, it is true. But I also think if nature decided to blow the leaves off the trees that there might be a secret plan. I think the leaves should stay on the ground like a blanket. As the cold settles in, the leaves huddle together, covering the roots, keeping their trees safe.

That's what I think.

And, yes, I do name everything. Every. Thing. Every. Thing. 

Poetry Thursday, careful reminder

If you care 
about what others 
think of you, 
then you will 
always be their 
slave.
~ L. Tzu

Grandma

 Today my grandmother would have been 112.  I have been thinking about her a lot lately, as I contemplate how to tell her story -- whether I should or not -- what I know and don't know -- what is her story...

There are lots of questions and very few answers.

Questions like ... who did she cut out of this picture? It is just like my grandmother to have this picture with someone cut out.  She was the kind of person who could cut people out of her life.  It surprises me to admit this while at the same time I know it to be true.  I remember her as harsh, judgemental, not wishy washy at all.

But in this picture, sometime in the 1920s, I think, sometime before she married my grandfather or had my father, she is young and her face tells very little.  Inscrutable, that is another way to understand her stoicism which I often read as harsh.  Maybe she was feeling super vulnerable all the time.

I just can't always reckon how someone who had lost two parents by the time she was 9, or two siblings by the time she was 30 could have then turned around and cut out her only living sister.

But, of course, I don't know her story, not really.

I know bits and pieces.

Snapshots, like these photos that reveal so little and so much at the same time.

 What to make of the starch and the serious face ... everyone else here seems to be having a good time.  [click on pic to see the whole thing... maybe it is only the men who are yucking it up.] Did she not smile because the person behind the camera tried to get her to smile?  Who was behind the camera??

In another from the same day, she has that half smile that I remember from real life.  It was bemused and amused and slightly annoyed and maybe holding something back all at the same time.

But she looked smart in that hat.  Maybe that is why she needed to give the serious pose.

What about this one with my aunts.  She is almost smiling here -- at least her eyes are smiling.  Was my grandfather behind the camera this time? Was she about to break out in the big smile or was this as big as it got, emotions slipping out of the eyes even though the mouth holds the smile back.

And the hand gently holding her oldest daughter's hand ... not her youngest daughter's hand.

Maybe that says more about my aunts than it does about my grandmother, but is says something.

Happy birthday, Grandma. 

Hope you don't mind me teasing out some meaning from these photos and your life.

Quote Thursday, on hope

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism.

It is not the conviction that something will turn out well,

but the certainty that something makes sense,

regardless of how it turns out.

~Vaclav Havel

trying...[this all over the place - you've been warned]

We yearn for connection.

But we treat each other like hostile strangers ... on the internet, and too often in real life.

So, we post and prod ... we weave and bob, we do whatever it takes to not actually connect.

Then, at times we meet our lost tribe members and connection, sometimes brief, brings us back to reality.

Life is hard, but it is not without its beauty.

Find beauty.
---
So, in the weeks that have passed since I started this post, I have had a rollercoaster of events ... and I mean that quite seriously.
I had a lovely birthday - truly amazing day with friends that included dancing - an amazing meeting about the foundation to honor Sergio's memory.  I was reminded of the blessings I have in my life, especially my wonderful, supportive community.

We celebrated Sergio's 25th birthday without him -- in the lead up, I was sure it would crush me, the energy expended just getting through the last two days made me feel like I was coming down with a cold (thankfully, I am not or it was nipped in the bud).  After rain and threats of rain and cold and people dropping out and having to reassure them that participation should only be part of your own way of dealing with this tragedy ... it was a gorgeous day.  GORGEOUS.  Ominous clouds gathered at the edges but were beat back by the sea breeze, and once again, I could feel Sergio's participation in making sure that our gathering wasn't rained on.  Friends from many parts of his life gathered, drank and ate and built a fire and an altar and laughed and cried.  While my heart was breaking again into a million pieces, it was so beautiful to see in real flesh and bone the love this person wrought with so few years.  Amazing.

I got an email offering me an interview for a job I really want.  So important on so many levels -- one, I applied for two jobs, one better paying and more in line with my skills, and one I can do with my eyes closed and enough money to live off of ... I got the interview for the better job ... amazing

My car started the steep decline which I cannot afford right now ... the sound coming from the car is a mixture of the swooped up crazy muffler sound and crazy about to fall apart -- I am generally not so moved by what others might think of me, but I want to hide every time I start my car. And for the first time in 15 years, it needs to be smog checked?! Ugh... I am torn between trying to get it sort of fixed so that I can keep it for a bit longer and donating it now to someone who will take it away... and did I mention that I love my car, I really do. It is the best car in the whole world that has been beyond a trooper for all these years ... ugh ugh ugh.

I killed it in the interview... really, killed it.  Waiting to hear back if I make it to the second round sometime in the next two weeks.

The bad thing is though that every time I have a win, I fall into the largest cavern of self doubt which is where I woke up this morning.

These are the quotes I am trying to use to get me out of my funk today:
"You are full of unshaped dreams... You are laden with beginnings ... there is hope in you." ~L. Ridge

"There is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness." ~Pearl S. Buck

Ok... it's all out there now, no more monsters under the bed. Got a stack of work to do, so I am off to be productive and wallow in self doubt no more ...

My hands are up and the wind is in my hair ... riding the rollercoaster of life.

Poetry Thursday

Let no man pull 
you so low 
as to hate him.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Poetry Thursday

You have no idea 
how hard I've looked 
for a gift to bring You. 
Nothing seemed right. 
What's the point 
of bringing gold 
to the gold mine, 
or water to the ocean. 
Everything I came up with 
was like taking spices 
to the Orient. 
It's no good 
giving my heart 
and my soul 
because you already 
have these. 
So I've brought 
you a mirror. 
Look at yourself 
and remember me. 
~ Rumi

pure joy

A couple of months ago, a friend asked me to her birthday celebration -- a bonfire on a remote beach on the new moon. When the day came, I almost bailed. I was tired. Depressed. Bereft, really, if you want to know the truth. But, I had made a promise, and I am nothing if not loyal to commitments I make to others. So I dragged my ass out of my apartment and drove the 40 miles over hill and dale to the remote beach chasing the setting sun.

A funny thing happened on that twisty turny road... I had a little moment.   As I was turning some corner, looking at the trees, watching the sun and wondering if I would make it there while there was still light, a thought popped in my head, "joy."  I looked around me, at all the beauty, and I realized what I needed more of in my life was joy.  Not just any joy, but pure joy.  I knew it because just seeing that beauty, I experienced pure joy.

As I write this, a single tear runs down my cheek, but it is not burning this time because joy engenders tears as much as pain does.

So I have been seeking expressions of pure joy -- whether mine or others.  Here's one. 

This is Dexter. I met him briefly on another drive to a remote beach.  When he saw new people, his first response was to pick up this huge buoy as though it were a ball and suggest we play with him.  Look at this marvelous ball I have found he seemed to be saying. 

Here are some other pictures of sights I found to be full of joy or that produced feelings of joy.

 The tiniest sand dollar I have ever found.

 The happy cows on the road to Point Reyes Light House.  It was really the tiny baby cows (yes I know there is a name for them), but I didn't snap a picture of them.

This tiny dog having a great time on a walk... and the one that I didn't snap a picture of ... his owner told me he waits patiently for the walk to the post office because at the end of waiting there is a treat.

It's the little things that bring us pure joy.

Quote Thursday

A painful time 
in our life is 
what I call a 
“healing crisis.” 
We are letting go 
of something old 
and opening to 
something new.” 
- Shakti Gawain

Poetry Thursday sort of...

The pain, their loss, 
it's all I have left of them.
You think the grief 
will make you smaller inside
like your heart will collapse 
in on itself,
but it doesn't.
I feel spaces opening up 
inside of me
like a building with rooms 
I've never explored.
~spoken by Dolores on Westworld
not sure who wrote it for the robot or the character, but I like it.

Scenes from my life right now

I keep wanting to write about what's going in my life right now, but then I don't do it.  Not that there is really anything going on ... I haven't applied for more jobs, my current job is giving me less and less hours, I am picking up other gigs on the side, trying to outfit my apartment.

So those are lots of things that are actually happening and it is all my life.

But this is not what is going on for me right now.

A lot of what is going on is being sad, crying, grieving... sometimes to the point of paralysis, but other times just as a release.

I try to keep honoring this process, but I am getting scared about how long it will take ... particularly about how long my savings will allow me to follow the path before I need to just get a job, any job.

I am spending too much time in my space alone ... perhaps too much, maybe just right.

It means most of these pictures are scenes from the doorway of my aparment.

This one is detail on the rain we got a couple of weeks ago... this is the little lemon tree my friend bought me!

[Non sequitur, I want to name it.  I am feeling it is a "him" and the name that always pops in my head is Elroy.  Not sure why, but I haven't really committed to it, yet. Your comments are welcome.]

The view from my apartment is really gorgeous... sunny or cloudy...

 even rainy and with ominous clouds threatening...

And I have been recording the animal visitors...

I guess the good news is that I have been getting out more this past week ... today actually marks day 7 of exercising out of doors ... next picture scenes from my life will reflect that change.

And maybe I will even start writing regularly again ... I can't predict.