Geography of grief :: April 2025
/The ER waiting room has metal detectors and an armed guard and a lot of chairs that are disconcertingly close to other people. I’ve spent an uncomfortable amount of time in this place the past few weeks because my dad has a terrible cancer that refuses to be stopped. I choose the most isolated seat for waiting and hope that my thin mask will keep out whatever is making the man in the corner retch repeatedly or the woman in the front cough until she sags breathless in her chair. The air reeks one day of bleach and another of vomit and always of worry, if not fear. One day there is a young man lying on the single bench with a bloodied arm raised over his head. Another, there is a woman sitting near the desk asking everyone who passes if she can have a drink from their water bottles. I make a sad little game of watching the startled clutching that follows this request.
I bring my homework with me, try to give my attention to composition theory or Titus Andronicus, but it’s pointless. Any words I read float untethered through my brain, knocking mercilessly against medical jargon and test results and expected outcomes. In the ER, time stretches and then suddenly compresses. Somewhere behind a door, my father cannot keep his eyes open. The bones of his face show sharply beneath his skin. When it is my turn to sit by his bed I see new similarities between us – the shape of our jaws, the narrow slope of our noses. Something inside my skin shrinks from this awareness, wants to retreat from this suffering body whose DNA echoes loudly inside my own. To combat this cowardice I hover around him, adjusting his blanket, the octopus of tubes running from his limbs, the pillows beneath his swollen feet. Already, these actions are taking the shape of memory, as if the time has already passed, as if I am already looking back.
Life splits in two. There is the time with my father and the time when I return to my own life. I feel profoundly present in both spaces. I say yes to every invitation for coffee or an evening out, I take urgent notes in each class. At home, I watch myself attending to ordinary tasks as if they are momentous occasions. Everything seems worthwhile, everything feels like a privilege. Except for when it doesn’t. Suddenly all I can do is drag myself to the couch for another round of British detective shows and watch the dog hair collect on the surface of the floors that last week seemed almost holy in their cleanliness.
The geography of grief, my friend Missy texts, is mysterious and ungovernable.
~ In these strange days, I’m thinking a lot about how I use my time. I bought a Brick and made my phone into a texting/photo/phone call device only and I ordered the new LightPhone so I can make this a permanent thing. I’m doing a ton of waiting right now – in the ER, in doctor’s offices, etc – but I have no desire to waste these moments in the netherworld of scrolling.
My son and I also committed to 100 days without following the news. I deleted all the political newsletters, blocked the news sites, ignore the headlines which are all designed for maximum fear/outrage impact. Last week I pulled up a weather site to plan for the week ahead and the headline, perched over a 5-day forecast of gorgeous spring sunshine, was “Temps to plummet on Saturday!!” Even the weather requires my dismay and anxiety now. I’ll pass, thanks. I started going outside just before bed to look at the sky instead. Turns out you can feel rain invisibly gathering in the atmosphere ahead of time, that clouds sneak in softly under cover of darkness, that cold reveals itself as soon as the sun goes down. That’s all the forecast I actually need.
I’m listening to all the things my body wants. Like tea instead of the harshness of coffee, silence instead of music, walks instead of heavy exercise, naps with my kittens and early bedtimes. I find I can’t bear the thought of eating animals right now, so I’m back to the comfort of plants, who seem always ready to welcome me home.
I haven’t had a lot of bandwidth for serious books lately (though that hasn’t stopped me from stress buying them!), but I’m reading poetry every day, including Mary Szybist’s work, and my friend Kyce Bello’s new book. I’m also slowly making my way through Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, which manages to capture the feeling of grief in such unexpected ways.
How about you? Are you reading anything good right now? What things are making you feel sane and settled? I’d love to hear.
Thanks so much for reading, for keeping me in your inbox. I always want to write more. Someday I think I actually will, but I so appreciate your patience until then.
Peace,
Tonia