Split Ends

 

Bright spring sunlight

pours into bathroom window - 

revealing split ends.**

Last week Wednesday was the one year anniversary of my last live class before moving entirely online, where I continue to teach to this day. 

Today is the thirty-first anniversary of my father's death.

The pandemic anniversary date snuck up on me fairly quickly; of course I've seen North American and European folks* posting about the year anniversary of many aspects of the pandemic in social media. Of course it's come up in personal conversations and in my classes. And yet, I am deeply affected by anniversaries (as regular readers of this blog know) and this one is striking me quite deeply.

Grief and Gratitude

"The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them." - Francis Weller

It's coming up on the half life anniversary of my mothers death. As of January 27, 2016, my mother will have been gone half my life. And as I found out when I checked to see what might be happening astrologically for me during this time, it turns out she died around my first lunar node, which means this will be the second lunar node date. It's time for me to experience some more independence, to turn another corner of liberation and autonomy from my family. At this time, that feels like adding gratitude to the mix, and not just lots of grief.

Individuating

My Mother, Northern Ireland, 1960's

Last night, I dreamed my mother lived longer than she did. That she was alive, now, and revealing to me two surprising things: she A) is really into Sade now(this from a woman who listened almost exclusively to classical music) and B) now wears make-up and gets her hair blown out once a week (no make-up, only done-up hair was a big bun she wore her hip-length, uncut hair in daily). I asked her, "Where have you been hiding your Sade tapes all these years? In your Chopin cassette cases?" and she smirked and nodded.

Saturday January 24th was the 18th anniversary of her death. Having spent a few days recently with her longest-term friend - her bestie from Kindergarten - having done TRE and spent time working through old triggers related to my interactions with her - having mourned who she may have been becoming when she died, and who she may have become had she lived - the anniversary passed subtlely, sort of subconsciously.

I slogged through prostrations, felt worn and sad but also alive. Little conscious thought or process, plenty of body awareness of loss. It's powerful, this grief, ever-changing and sometimes more subtle, sometimes more strong. When people ask me - is it always the same? How does it change? My answers vary depending on audience - have they faced a major loss? Are they asking out of ignorance, curiosity or because they want to know if their own struggle is normal? Are they a spectator or a cohort member? And my answers change based on how I feel.

18 years ago I became an orphan. Something about this feels powerful to me: I have now been without parents for an "adult" amount of time. Recently an image came to me of "giving birth to my mother" - it didn't "make sense" until now. Now something is shifting, seismic level. The TRE is releasing trauma deep in my hips, letting co-dependence slip less frequently out of my lips. My neck loosens, softens. There's some kind of shift happening.

I am an adult at being an orphan. This is a new life, all over again. Next year, a year from now, she will have been gone half my life: half my life with a mother, half without. I cannot say exactly what it is, but it feels something like this: this year, 2015, is some kind of window. It feels like wanting to finish my memoir, Bermuda Triangles. It feels like I can see all her old friends this year and feel some opening as well as closure at the same time. It feels like stories I've told are changing forever, for good, for better. I am independent now, not as chained to my grief. Individuating from my orphan self, while also integrating.

Something is finishing, and something is beginning. Something is slipping away and I am finding something else in its place. The slippery life of grief, the slippery stories of memory. I feel strong, sad and clear. For now.

Living the Subtle

I have a cold right now. Just about nothing feels subtle about me: I honk when I sneeze or blow, cough constantly, and my voice has dropped an octave, instantly declaring me sick to all I dare speak to. And yet, so many subtle things have been happening recently.

Under-the-surface, mid-sea changes that bring strong waves to the shore. Those waves I have yet to see, but I am learning to feel and trust what is happening deep underneath will have its own effects.

What do I mean?

Dylan and I "celebrated" our sixth wedding anniversary on August 15th. I put the verb in quotes because, in fact, we spent a good chunk of the day crying. Struggling through wants and needs, accusations and defenses, we were able to rest holding hands at the end of the day. But it was not pretty arriving there, and for days - weeks - after, I contemplated the ultimate, not subtle thing:

I thought about leaving her.  In a short period of time, she also considered the same about me.

My Mother, My Brothers.

January 24th, next Friday, will be the 17th anniversary of my mother's death.

I don't formally recognize it every year. It almost always it takes me by surprise if I don't, as if my body knows (and it does) exactly when it the anniversary is, even if my mind has forgotten.

This week, the week of the anniversary, I will go to where our family is buried - mother included - at our family cabin in southern Wisconsin. The brother who owns it has decided to sell it, which is fair. I can't imagine having a second property to keep up, and this one is laden with all kinds of heavy family history, as well as some good memories. It's time to let go.

Fragments of Language

Rotterdam, August 2011

Aaron Siskind, Abstract Expressionist photographer extraordinaire, published a collection of his works called Fragmentation of Language in 1997. In it, he explores what it is to receive seeming messages from the visual world of cluttered ads and graffiti, sometimes even torn or ripped non-verbal messages, or rust in calligraphic form. It is one of my favorite collections, as I am drawn to photographing this stuff myself.

I am in Rotterdam right now. It's a city that lives under the shadow of Amsterdam, the far more famous coffee shop and canal-ridden other big Netherlands city. I've been to Amsterdam before - it's quaint and enjoyable. But we have friends in Rotterdam, and Dylan and I are both fascinated by modern architecture. Rotterdam got flattened by a fire stemmed from a 15 minute German bombing in WWII, so the whole center of town is new. Brand new. New like a lot of Eastern Berlin is. Cranes everywhere, still in progress. Old and new right next to one another, and the new here is very powerful to look at - cubed buildings, special skyscrapers with nicknames like "The Apple" and "The Pencil." Photos will follow on Flickr (herspiral) of course.

Moving Math

The first song I run into in my iTunes this morning as I sit down to write about
coincidence and intuition?

"Synchronicity" by the Police, of course.
All the lyrics are worthwhile, so here they are:

"Synchronicity I" by the Police
With one breath, with one flow You will know Synchronicity A sleep trance, a dream dance A shaped romance Synchronicity A connecting principle Linked to the invisible Almost imperceptible Something inexpressible Science insusceptible Logic so inflexible Causally connectable Yet nothing is invincible If we share this nightmare Then we can dream Spiritus mundi If you act as you think The missing link Synchronicity We know you, they know me Extrasensory Synchronicity A star fall, a phone call It joins all Synchronicity It's so deep, it's so wide You're inside Synchronicity Effect without cause Sub-atomic laws, scientific pause Synchronicity

It's been a week full of it. I began reading Letters to Vanessa by Jeremy Hayward to take a break from Liar's Club by Mary Karr (great book but pretty heavy). In my first class of the week, a student asked about intuition and how it fit into writing practice, which lead to a conversation about coincidence and synchronicity. I continued to read Letters only to go deeper and deeper into these questions (I had read his more "academic" books before, but not this one) and of course began to notice it all over, as is usually the case.

I also noted myself behaving in some old rusty patterns I hadn't done in awhile. Eating in binges, not exercising at all, shutting down and disconnecting. I attributed it to winter, to, well, I don't know what. You know how it can be. You start acting all shitty towards yourself and no explanations are necessary. The part that believes you suck just puts it forward without justification and you stop asking.

Then, last night in the last class of the week, it hit me. Last night was the 20th and there was so much focus on it being a year since Obama's inauguration, on Dylan at the credit union with students returning, that I had missed the warning signs. The 19th is the anniversary of my mother's death. Clearly my body caught the signals and protected my mind from them, or tried to amplify the messages with abusive behaviors.

I wrote about it, so painful to feel the connections between self-hate and grief, how my mother taught me those behaviors and somehow by doing them I feel closer to her. Later, in bed, I told Dylan that the older I get, the less real my parents seem, the less I actually remember, while the more I actually sympathize, understand and am curious about them. Very sad stuff.

In bed, crying after processing, I also realized a moving chunk of math. As of March 15, my father will have been dead 20 years. My mother died when I was almost 20. This is the 13 year after my mother died; my dad died when I was about to turn 13. I had a mother as long as I haven't had a father, and vice-versa. Wow.

Coincidence, synchronicity, we tend to use these for blessings, for good outcomes. Fate gets the bad rap for the "negatives." This is a mixed realization, but I am giving it to synchronicity. As the Police point out, all of it works toward the same ends, and who am I to say which it is?

RIP Tricia Leanna Reilly Hall