Between Here and Gone (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

Seems crazy it's been a week since I blogged.  Daily might have been overwhelming, but weekly feels like too much time in-between.  I might have to find a Happy Medium (maybe a Tuesday *and* Friday routine?).  Speaking of mediums, Sarah and I are looking into psychic readings.  To be continued...

My Sunday was fairly quiet (deliberately so), and then Nancy, Dave, Chico, and I went to see Jennings & Keller in concert; they tour out west from May to October, so they've only been back in town a few weeks.  Great show, in that Laurie debuted a few new songs (one inspired by an essay in Small Victories, an Anne Lamott book I gave her years ago) as well as covered *two* Joni songs (For Free and Woodstock) in honor of Joni's 80th birthday (today, actually!).  Dana played the guitar, dobro, and pedal steel (a master of all three) and their harmonies were on point; I did cry a few times, but I am so glad I went.

You may recall that I've been very insistent on attending an in-person bereavement support group, at least for the first few months, and I did find a few gatherings in the area that qualified.  Chico, Sarah, and I attended one yesterday, fairly close by (every Monday 12:30-2:30).  It was very warm and welcoming, composed mostly of women who had lost their husbands, but still resonated with us (grief is grief, right?).  On one hand, it was difficult to process so much pain from others but, on the other, they are so loving and supportive of each other, a true Village.  Many approached us afterward with hugs and kind words.  I also plan on attending a different group (every 2nd and 4th Wednesday, 5:30-6:30), also pretty close to us.  If I like them both, I'll attend both.  No one says I have to choose.  It feels like forward motion, although even lateral is intentional movement.

I spent a good bit of today on the phone with UnitedHealthcare, in search of therapists in my network; I also asked for the following filters:  close to home, female, in-person, grief... which narrowed the field down to 8 (and then 6, because two of them had *horrible* reviews).  I called one already, but haven't heard back yet.  Thinking positive... 🌞

I did begin re-watching (although it's been decades - 2001- since my first go-around) Six Feet Under, which is now available on Netflix.  I almost shut it down completely in that the first death, a bus/car accident, happened in the first 8 minutes, but I kept going, and continue to be reminded of its brilliance and resonance with my current mindset.  There are 5 seasons, and I'm going slowly, so this could take me into the New Year.

Thanksgiving.  Right now, anything is better than here, where my heart just could not handle sitting around a familiar table with my youngest in absentia.  My sister Mari has thrown herself into this wholeheartedly, for which I am extremely grateful, conjuring the joyful chaos I have cultivated over the years.  We will help, it will all be great, there will be a gap and a hole and a metaphorical empty chair, but there will also be the love of family weaving its way throughout the day... and then we can stamp paid to the first First, with more to follow for the next 11 months, and maybe it will get just a bit easier with each one, or maybe it will feel like The Worst Groundhog Day Ever, in which we rip off the band-aid for Christmas and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and Valentine's Day and Easter and Mother's Day and Father's Day and E's birthday ad infinitum until it eventually becomes The New Normal (which sounds equally horrifying).  Who knows, right?  In the immortal words of Ani DiFranco:  "it's my first time for this kind of thing".  No Superhero complex here... 🤷

SONG:  Between Here and Gone by Mary Chapin Carpenter

BOOK:  Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives by Louise DeSalvo

POEM(S):  Think in poems. Breathe in. 

Sing your grief. Breathe out.

Write your inner ocean in waves of words. Express your fire in exclamations on a page.  

Howl the words. Chirp them. 

Caw them across the sky.

Splash them. Sparkle them. 

Crack them open. Compost them. 

Plant them. 

Writing out the words

Rights what’s inside

And is a magical rite of inner alchemy.

Words are mighty powerful inside and out.

Express them in scribbles

Or sketches.

Express them in circles or spirals.

Keep writing till your hand hurts if you have to.

Till you are empty. Till you are shining. Till your face begins to rain. Till your heart and body and breath returns to center. 

Till you are again renewed.

~ The Wild Matryoshka

How We Are Carried by Sierra DeMulder

Did you know

fetal cells stay

in the carrier's body

after the baby 

is born?

Even if they

are not born alive

but birthed

quiet and indigo

as dusk.

For decades,

their DNA can be

found in the blood

and tissue of the one

who fashioned them.

Stuccoed to pancreas,

bone marrow,

heart, of course - 

that basin of folklore,

that antiquary of longing.

See how we were

designed to not let go?

How we are built

to carry love

long after it has

grown up 

and gone?

QUOTE(S):  “Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” ~ Graham Greene 

"Write hard and clear about what hurts." ~ Ernest Hemingway

"The goal of the writer is to take what’s inside their heart and make it plain on the page." ~ Ada Limon (current Poet Laureate of the United States)