On Grief
It is morning so what else am I going to do? My writing mentor said, a few years before he rolled himself off the roof of his Venice Beach apartment. But write.
There is so much grief under everything now.
I almost lose it standing in line in the valley waiting to go into a coffee shop watching two men who haven’t seen each other in a while say Hi! What’s up!? and hugging. I think of all of the bodies I have known that will never do that again, will never say what’s up, will never touch, and also all the bodies I don’t know, piling up.
I slice a pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds, roast it and puree it and roll it in oats and honey and cinnamon and peanut butter and ground flax seeds for my daughter to have something healthy to snack on.
For the first time in my life I understand the peace sign. Wanting to print it on a flag, wanting to hang it on our gate. Wanting to let people know that this is what I believe.
The atrocities of the world are enormous. That if you list one, you have to start listing them all, and it is endless.
A video of a girl screaming for her mother. Where’s Mama? I want Mama. Gutting me. In Gaza, there is no more mama, no more bread, no more water, no more light.
I had once been jealous of those who had religion. The steadfastness, the righteousness, the assurance. The community. The worship. The rituals. The rapture.
I do not know enough about history. I am not a scholar or an intellectual, but I know about the heart. And maybe it is more complicated - but the heart is not. We all have one. That when I first heard the news all I could think was genocide - the world over.
What do you mean? My therapist says. That you can’t see a future. When I tell her it’s just blank. Do you see your daughter growing up?
How can I? I say. I have to laugh when people ask if I know where she’s going to school. I don’t know what the world is going to even look like for her in five years.
Dreaming when she was just born of teaching her how to forage, where to find water, how to hotwire a boat. As if these things might save her.
Moo moo ba ba neigh neigh she says in her sleep. Raising her head and then putting it down again. I hold her long and tight. Pressing my mouth to her hair, to her ear, my nose to her neck.
I call our Congress people.
It is only in the last few days since giving birth that I have begun to dream again. First about an old boyfriend, carrying a knife, following me, pregnant again, around a tennis court, eating meat, and I have to hide. Florescent light. And then a rabid dog, a rotting wood floor, my mother holding my daughter, and both of them falling through the wood, skinned and bleeding. An electric typewriter. Barking. A bell ringing. My daughter crying.
Maybe when the Apostles went back for Jesus they found his body and buried it. They made a pact. Creating a myth.
We go on - is how I was raised. We bear witness. We continue because we are living - Because what else am I supposed to do. I hear Les say into a morning, on a Sunday over 13 years ago.
Oh dear Jane!♥️