A Study of Grief

I. A KIDNEY

Marianne sent me an email several days ago, a piece of writing she made for somebody, a beautiful piece as could only be expected of her. It prompted thoughts about grief, and suddenly I found myself awake for the better part of the night, thinking of her grief, my grief.

I thought of the validity of grief, whether one was weak or strong for talking about hers, whether one was always entitled to it, whether my grief was less valid than Marianne's or the other way around.

I want to write her back, letting her know that her grief is valid, perhaps by showing her that I too carry around a form of grief, which I take out from my heart from time to time to observe.  And that after observing it, I always want to put it somewhere - preferably in a trash bin - but so far it is not happening yet.

It is a lot of me - this grief - more like a kidney and not a kidney stone; not something you can flush away whether intentionally or unintentionally by drinking a lot of water. A kidney! I will go about my day, blissfully minding my work - then it takes only a sip of water to remind me that a kidney is inside me.

It takes just a word, a letter, an intro to a song, a simple tune - and one is transported back to that grief.

II. A TREE

With love, it is like we plant a tree inside us, only after we have fully realized the reasons why the tree must be there. We have evidence, hard proofs that the tree must be where it is now: the roots entwined our limbs, its heart sucks the blood from our heart, its great leaves are our thoughts, our joy.

It is very reasonable that we ask for equally hard proofs, for valid reasons as to why one day we have to chop this tree down ourselves. One look at its roots and it's clear: weeding them out will be a slow, painful process, and it will cost us our limbs.

Look at the tree, why is it even there, why did we even let it grow this big, if not for the valid reasons we gathered along the way, that tree must grow, so big and strong inside our own psyche?

Does the universe (or god, or the humans who provide us evidence that the tree must grow) not owe us an explanation as to why this tree must now go?

Do we not deserve a closure, at the very least, be it a tiny sign or a thunderstorm? Because it confuses us so much that it pains: the irrational, illogical turns of events that give us no reason to cut off our limbs. We get that our limbs must go, axes are already in our hands, all we ask is, why?

Why chop them off? Why is there not a valid reason? How is one expected to start a process so big, so slow, so painful, without reasons?

III.  WALKING AROUND AS A LIVING TREE, WITH A KIDNEY INSIDE

I cannot pretend that a closure comes to me, so a grief can be nicely wrapped and put away.  Just like in the occurrence of deaths and other tragedies in life, a closure is rarely provided, and chopping off your limbs does not always mean you are free for life.

I choose to keep my tree, my kidney. Somehow I think Marianne's tree and kidney are too beautiful, she should keep them too. As I am a lot older than her, I thought I knew more - I thought I would be able to tell her how to navigate through life with tree roots interlacing our limbs, a throbbing kidney inside us.

Alas, the truth is, I don't know how. Even in my ripe old age all I can say is that one will walk as one has always walked, one's steps heavier now that the tree is big.

But one just walks - stubbornly if one will -whether or not there is a closure. Whether or not there is a reason. Whether or not one feels up to it.

One just walks. And I know that if the one happens to be Marianne...not only she will walk, she will write, too. Beautifully, as can only be expected of her.

On Writing- So Far

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. ~ Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955)

 
Teaching has been something I long to do since I was 7 - and I wasn't surprised at all that after dipping my toes in several fields of work out of university, I started to teach.  The other thing that I have been longing to do since forever, however, is writing.

It surprises me that all these years, writing hasn't been a priority for me. Today is a Sunday, and since yesterday I have been studying some maths in preparation for my class on Tuesday. However, I have not allowed myself some time and space to write. This is as if I am telling myself that writing is not so important - that it can be pushed low down on my priority list.

Since I long to be writing fiction, it is also a surprise that since I started working 15 years ago, I haven't allowed myself to read a lot of fiction. It was always dry textbooks and journals, some blogs (although blogs are often delightful to read - definitely the ones I regularly read are not dry at all), newspapers - no wonder there is never enough "fiction juice" in my veins.

Surprises, surprises. A woman longing to be a writer, who does make writing a priority, and does not read enough. I imagine I am a bit like an aspiring athlete who never makes the time to train. Therefore, in conjunction to my last post about writing more, I have also resolved to read more fiction this year. My target is 12 fiction books, and so far I have finished - well, one book.

And, and: I have filled up my one old notebook pictured in the last blog post, and have started writing in my Moleskine. Still a long way to fill it up, though. But it is only February, and one should always stay optimistic.

If anything, I have always noticed that writing and reading (fiction) makes me happier. Resolving to write and read, I suspect, is my subconscious resolving to be happier this year.

Now off I am to write long-hand in my journal and read some fiction - despite the nagging feeling that I should do some preparation for next week's project at work, I guess I'll make my writing and reading a priority for a change.

Pretending to Write

 It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them. ~ (Isabel Colegate)



Lo and behold: beautiful notebooks in my possession. There are four of them in the picture, and three of them are sadly still empty.


From left to right, they are:
(1) A notebook from Chicfuschia, with light blue cover. I am not sure whether it's an A4 notebook, but it sure looks big. And thick. I often take it out of my drawer and look at it admiringly, but am still intimidated at the thought that it will take years to fill in.


(2) Another notebook from Chicfuschia, it's red and small, and whenever I touch it I tell myself that I can fill up the entire book in no time. I am lying: it has been almost six months and the book is still blank. I got notebook (1) and (2) as a birthday gift in August 2012, and considering it is now January 2013 and both notebooks are blank, you can guess who has not been writing diligently.

(3) This is a beautiful black Moleskine notebook that R gave me for my birthday in...2011. Instead of immediately writing in it, I thought long and hard about what to write. Actually too long, and too hard. Needless to say, 1.5 years after the beautiful thing landed on my palms, it is still empty.

(4) A thin notebook with brown cover, I bought this myself in July 2012. Since it is thin, I thought I could fill it up in a month or so. Ha! So far I have written a short story and scattered some sentences here and there, unable to fill up merely 10 pages of the seemingly thin book.

I am currently using another notebook shown on the right, which R bought me in 2010.
I needed almost 3 months before I dared writing anything on it. I was so nervous about writing in it, afraid of making grammatical errors, afraid of having nothing to say. I finally wrote down my first entry in the notebook on November 2010, and now there are only 6 blank pages left. I cannot believe it has taken 2 years and still the notebook is not completely filled up.

I am thinking of several 2013 resolutions for my writing life:
1. Fill up my old notebook
2. Start writing in my blank notebooks

I shall blog about how I am doing in these resolutions.

One note though:

In my ripe old age I have learned that speaking in front of a classroom full of raging young adults may be scary. Making mistakes while teaching may be scary. One thing that is absolutely, completely scary, however, is showing up and put your thoughts on a blank page.