I have been reading many loss memoirs lately, and I notice so many of my phrases in them.
Parts of Claire Bidwell Smith's The Rules of Inheritance resonate particularly. My first reaction was a
twinge of writerly betrayal, like my beautifully crafted ideas were pre-conceived before I got to them. My deeper and truer reaction, though, is that these feelings are
universal, and sometimes there is one best way to express them. Drowning in grief, for example, seems like a metaphor that rings true for a lot of people when they have lost a loved one. Sometimes it's hard to breathe. Sometimes you have chest pain. Sometimes you cry so hard you can't breathe. Sometimes you wonder when the tears will stop, as you watch them springing and trickling through the day like rain on the curves of a car window.
My grief is different from Bidwell Smith's, to be sure. It's particular to who I am and to the person I have lost. It is shaped by my age, my upbringing, my surroundings, and how I spend my time. Ultimately, though, this shared vocabulary helps to remind me that other
people have been through this, and have not drowned - or have drowned
and come back to shore.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
Dharma Body
Thich Nhat Hanh says that when the Buddha was dying, he told his followers not to despair, that they still would be able to encounter his dharma body. I suppose this is one way of conceptualizing the presence of my mom's spirit that I so often feel.
I want to unpack it a bit, though. Dharma is, per Wikipedia (I know, but go with me), "that which upholds, supports or maintains the regulatory order of the universe." Based on the distinction that the Buddha draws between the physical body and the dharma body, we can infer that the latter is not corporeal. It must be what many of us would think of as spiritual, or the soul itself. But in the West, we don't have this added dimension of support for the universe.
I'm thinking of the dharma body now as the universe's scaffolding - everyone's soul/true self pitching in like the turtles in the Native American legend, each playing his or her own part in holding up the universe - or repairing it, if we want to turn to my originally chosen spiritual tradition. (I'll get to shul again one of these days, I swear). I love the way different faith and belief traditions dovetail; my mom's memorial will be a testament to that, as it fit with her beliefs, too.
Though I feel so disparate, not unified, scattered in my grief, I also know that I am being held together by certain things, and one of those is my mother's dharma body and the force of her love.
I want to unpack it a bit, though. Dharma is, per Wikipedia (I know, but go with me), "that which upholds, supports or maintains the regulatory order of the universe." Based on the distinction that the Buddha draws between the physical body and the dharma body, we can infer that the latter is not corporeal. It must be what many of us would think of as spiritual, or the soul itself. But in the West, we don't have this added dimension of support for the universe.
I'm thinking of the dharma body now as the universe's scaffolding - everyone's soul/true self pitching in like the turtles in the Native American legend, each playing his or her own part in holding up the universe - or repairing it, if we want to turn to my originally chosen spiritual tradition. (I'll get to shul again one of these days, I swear). I love the way different faith and belief traditions dovetail; my mom's memorial will be a testament to that, as it fit with her beliefs, too.
Though I feel so disparate, not unified, scattered in my grief, I also know that I am being held together by certain things, and one of those is my mother's dharma body and the force of her love.
Goals
I've been thinking a lot about goals lately. I am going through the loss of the closest person in the world to me. I have bad days, but I also have very driven days, which is not at all something I expected from grieving. Today is a bit of both. I went full steam until my plans started to unravel, and now I'm not sure what my mind and body are telling me to do. I'll second guess for a few more minutes, and then commit to something.
I woke up this morning to my public radio station's annual fundraising drive. They did it last week, too, and I pledged, thinking of the annual support my mother gave our local station when I was a kid (and into my adulthood). Today, the station announced that if they met their goal, the rest of the day would be fundraiser-free. This kind of acknowledgement of the necessary evil of fundraising drives - that they know we hate them and that we would all rather listen to uninterrupted radio - is, I think, a fresh and (hopefully) useful approach for the radio station. I haven't listened to find out if it worked. They may let us know tomorrow.
The things I expect of myself every day are superhuman, I'll admit. I rarely complete all items on my too-long to do lists. I try to cram too many things into short windows of time. I say yes to all invitations and then feel incredibly guilty if I have to cancel something. In my time of grief, i still expect these things, although I'm learning to shift my expectations, and, really, to give myself a break. The things I expect of others during this time - the many different manifestations of sympathy and empathy - are sometimes too stringent, I'm realizing. People simply don't know what to say and do. My loss is too great. It reaches too far. This morning I resolved to pay less attention to their confusion, and just feel their love.
I woke up this morning to my public radio station's annual fundraising drive. They did it last week, too, and I pledged, thinking of the annual support my mother gave our local station when I was a kid (and into my adulthood). Today, the station announced that if they met their goal, the rest of the day would be fundraiser-free. This kind of acknowledgement of the necessary evil of fundraising drives - that they know we hate them and that we would all rather listen to uninterrupted radio - is, I think, a fresh and (hopefully) useful approach for the radio station. I haven't listened to find out if it worked. They may let us know tomorrow.
The things I expect of myself every day are superhuman, I'll admit. I rarely complete all items on my too-long to do lists. I try to cram too many things into short windows of time. I say yes to all invitations and then feel incredibly guilty if I have to cancel something. In my time of grief, i still expect these things, although I'm learning to shift my expectations, and, really, to give myself a break. The things I expect of others during this time - the many different manifestations of sympathy and empathy - are sometimes too stringent, I'm realizing. People simply don't know what to say and do. My loss is too great. It reaches too far. This morning I resolved to pay less attention to their confusion, and just feel their love.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Banner's Marilyn
(Oh, hi. I'm back. Life has dealt me a tough hand since I started this blog. I'm back nonetheless.)
I'm finishing up Lois Banner's Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox, and I'm of two different minds about it. My predominant opinion is that it does an elegant job at fusing details of Monroe's life together, yielding a really persuasive persona(lity). It leaps off the page for most of the book, whether the reader is peeking at the included photos or not, and no matter how many of Monroe's movies the reader has seen (this reader hasn't seen enough of them, despite her interest in the filmic and historical persona: hello, Netflix).
Some things bothered me, though, and they mostly center on Banner's own representation of the originality of her research. Maybe I'm too bound by some sort of scholarly modesty, but Banner's way of presenting her own innovations really grated on me: she peppers her text with "I have discovered"(s) and, even worse, generalizes about what "other biographers" do and do not show. Even though I can only, grudgingly admit to having read just the Mailer and the Oates interpretations of Monroe's life, I can't imagine that all biographies have done any one thing as a unified group. A little more care in this would have benefited Banner's scholarly credibility - and I know she has it! I just wish she'd written it in a little more gracefully. On the other hand, I might be selling my own work too short.
I'm finishing up Lois Banner's Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox, and I'm of two different minds about it. My predominant opinion is that it does an elegant job at fusing details of Monroe's life together, yielding a really persuasive persona(lity). It leaps off the page for most of the book, whether the reader is peeking at the included photos or not, and no matter how many of Monroe's movies the reader has seen (this reader hasn't seen enough of them, despite her interest in the filmic and historical persona: hello, Netflix).
Some things bothered me, though, and they mostly center on Banner's own representation of the originality of her research. Maybe I'm too bound by some sort of scholarly modesty, but Banner's way of presenting her own innovations really grated on me: she peppers her text with "I have discovered"(s) and, even worse, generalizes about what "other biographers" do and do not show. Even though I can only, grudgingly admit to having read just the Mailer and the Oates interpretations of Monroe's life, I can't imagine that all biographies have done any one thing as a unified group. A little more care in this would have benefited Banner's scholarly credibility - and I know she has it! I just wish she'd written it in a little more gracefully. On the other hand, I might be selling my own work too short.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Fiurther? Fiore
I don't like to think of myself as a nitpicker. I do, however, cringe every time I see an easily avoided typo or misspelling in a reputable publication. I also like to ponder why it was missed - which is easier to determine in some cases than in others.
Today's installment comes from the Guardian, which has long been my paper of choice, with the New York Times a close second (and that sometimes more out of liberal loyalty than belief in its journalistic quality)
The headline is an interesting beast: "Ben Bernanke won't commit to fiurther Fed stimulus – US politics live." The simplest explanation for the mistake is that the letters I and U are right next to each other on a standard QWERTY keyboard, so whoever typed the headline accidentally added an extra vowel. Then, of course, no copy-editor caught the error.
Punctuation is worth another post, but I did want to share the below gem that I came across not five minutes after finding the "fiurther" fiasco. The subheading on an article about China's economic power in the supermarket reads as follows: "Within a generation China, is likely to replace the US as the biggest market in the world. We report from the heart of the consumer revolution []" (brackets mine). The missing period at the end of the second sentence is bad; the misplaced comma incorrectly dividing the first sentence's clauses is even worse.
What's most interesting to me as I revise my post is that, two days after I came across the articles and many days after their respective publication dates, nobody at the Guardian has gone in to correct the error. Is the culprit (lack of) attention, time, or money? Is it proofreading a casualty of our fast-paced new media environment? Do staffers need to be paid more, or worked harder?In our fast-paced world of mutable media, I would have expected someone to pounce on it right away and fix it, with or without reference to the original mistake. Our mutable media makes it easy to cover over mistakes - so in the spirit of historical accuracy, maybe overlooked errors like these are actually good things.
In any case, I wonder if the Guardian is looking for web copy editors?
Today's installment comes from the Guardian, which has long been my paper of choice, with the New York Times a close second (and that sometimes more out of liberal loyalty than belief in its journalistic quality)
The headline is an interesting beast: "Ben Bernanke won't commit to fiurther Fed stimulus – US politics live." The simplest explanation for the mistake is that the letters I and U are right next to each other on a standard QWERTY keyboard, so whoever typed the headline accidentally added an extra vowel. Then, of course, no copy-editor caught the error.
Punctuation is worth another post, but I did want to share the below gem that I came across not five minutes after finding the "fiurther" fiasco. The subheading on an article about China's economic power in the supermarket reads as follows: "Within a generation China, is likely to replace the US as the biggest market in the world. We report from the heart of the consumer revolution []" (brackets mine). The missing period at the end of the second sentence is bad; the misplaced comma incorrectly dividing the first sentence's clauses is even worse.
What's most interesting to me as I revise my post is that, two days after I came across the articles and many days after their respective publication dates, nobody at the Guardian has gone in to correct the error. Is the culprit (lack of) attention, time, or money? Is it proofreading a casualty of our fast-paced new media environment? Do staffers need to be paid more, or worked harder?In our fast-paced world of mutable media, I would have expected someone to pounce on it right away and fix it, with or without reference to the original mistake. Our mutable media makes it easy to cover over mistakes - so in the spirit of historical accuracy, maybe overlooked errors like these are actually good things.
In any case, I wonder if the Guardian is looking for web copy editors?
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Mourning & Wishes for Rest
Two of my childhood heroes passed away this past week: Adam "MCA" Yauch of the Beastie Boys and children's book creator extraordinaire Maurice Sendak. (Sidenote: I didn't know until today that Sendak was from Brooklyn. This means that both men were born in the borough in which I now live, which helps me a little with my mourning.) Others have written far more eloquently than I on how important both men are to arts and letters, so I won't attempt that today. What I'm thinking through is how and why we mourn, especially when we don't personally know the person who has passed away.
I deliberately chose "non-traditional" obituaries for the links, in part because the Internet is scattered with hundreds of remembrances of both Yauch and Sendak, but also because I've been thinking a lot about what it means to memorialize (and mourn) someone. Derrida is useful here (on Levinas), and even Dylan Thomas.The obituaries to which people often seem to draw much of their information tend to be from "official" news sources like the New York Times - or perhaps the drawing is more internal, given that I used to think of that paper as more of an arbiter of influence than I currently do.
The other thing about memorials, as my post title indicates, is the invocation of a peaceful rest, and what that says about the mourner and the mourned. It is a beautiful thought, no matter one's religious (or non-religious) tradition. Lately, though, it's been occurring to me that the peaceful rest is in stark contrast to a survivor's roiling sadness and pain. I haven't yet decided how much I'll infuse my personal life into this blog, but suffice it to say that one of the closest people to me has received a cancer diagnosis, so Yauch's death, especially, is hitting me harder as I deal with my own loved one's pain. I keep thinking of his daughter and the pain, confusion, and rage that she is probably feeling. As much as I love the Beasties' music and Yauch's activism and humor, this is his daughter's tragedy, and his wife's, and the other Adam's and Mike D's, not mine.
Rest in peace, Adam Yauch and Maurice Sendak.
I deliberately chose "non-traditional" obituaries for the links, in part because the Internet is scattered with hundreds of remembrances of both Yauch and Sendak, but also because I've been thinking a lot about what it means to memorialize (and mourn) someone. Derrida is useful here (on Levinas), and even Dylan Thomas.The obituaries to which people often seem to draw much of their information tend to be from "official" news sources like the New York Times - or perhaps the drawing is more internal, given that I used to think of that paper as more of an arbiter of influence than I currently do.
The other thing about memorials, as my post title indicates, is the invocation of a peaceful rest, and what that says about the mourner and the mourned. It is a beautiful thought, no matter one's religious (or non-religious) tradition. Lately, though, it's been occurring to me that the peaceful rest is in stark contrast to a survivor's roiling sadness and pain. I haven't yet decided how much I'll infuse my personal life into this blog, but suffice it to say that one of the closest people to me has received a cancer diagnosis, so Yauch's death, especially, is hitting me harder as I deal with my own loved one's pain. I keep thinking of his daughter and the pain, confusion, and rage that she is probably feeling. As much as I love the Beasties' music and Yauch's activism and humor, this is his daughter's tragedy, and his wife's, and the other Adam's and Mike D's, not mine.
Rest in peace, Adam Yauch and Maurice Sendak.
Monday, April 9, 2012
A Book of One's Own
Happy Monday!
I was recently struck by a small phrase in Michael Dirda's Washington Post review of Fiona MacCarthy's The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination. Dirda calls the book (which I haven't yet read) "one of those books one can happily live in for a week." I love the idea of inhabiting a book - in part because it really speaks to what readers often feel when they encounter an engrossing text, and also because the phrase itself shifts our perceptions about what is and isn't possible to do, both with words and with books. To expand a bit on this latter point, I guess I'm more broadly interested in the poetic use of words to describe what one might consider an everyday experience.
I was recently struck by a small phrase in Michael Dirda's Washington Post review of Fiona MacCarthy's The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination. Dirda calls the book (which I haven't yet read) "one of those books one can happily live in for a week." I love the idea of inhabiting a book - in part because it really speaks to what readers often feel when they encounter an engrossing text, and also because the phrase itself shifts our perceptions about what is and isn't possible to do, both with words and with books. To expand a bit on this latter point, I guess I'm more broadly interested in the poetic use of words to describe what one might consider an everyday experience.
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