New Post at Medium: I Saw the Sign

"Everyone knows the signs. There are hundreds of books, websites, videos, dedicated to them: flickering lights, unexplained touches, items in the house disappearing, temperature changes in the room, dreams visits, audible hallucinations, shadows. The list goes on and on of ways that your loved ones are attempting to contact you from beyond the land of the living, letting you know they’re okay. In the almost two years since my mother died, I’ve never seen a sign. " 

 To read more, go here.

Rainy Days and Mondays

We have to drive back to Baltimore today—Memorial Day weekend on the Eastern Shore dissolved into the outer fringe of a tropical storm cartwheeling off the coast of the Carolinas northward. Days like these remind me of when I was a child, weeks removed from heading back to school. Trips to the baseball diamond with my brother or on my grandmother’s sofa, devouring Nancy Drew mysteries and wondering why "The Love Boat" was such a bad show, even to my largely uncultured mind at the time, stopped, and so did time, as I sat motionless on the couch, trying to squeeze every second out of every minute with a kind of Zen mindfulness intending to make the world grind to a halt. I did not want to go back to school—I wanted summer to last forever even if, for all purposes, it wasn’t even fun anymore, just me lying around, bemoaning the eventual ending of an orange that still had a lot of juice left in it.

I am still this ruminating, time-halting worrier, preferring to press the last leaves of summer under glass rather than climb the trees and feel the sun on my face. Of course, the rain today doesn’t help. I’ve chosen to work instead, writing a book review and an essay for an online journal, tangible measures of my time that I can return to over and over again instead of my fleeting memories. And maybe that is why I write—to slow, perhaps stop, the unstoppable march of time, a feat not even the gods could manage. All while the rain keeps coming—before I was born, after I will die. And I will live on, too, in some way I cannot catalog. A scary but inevitable transition, one my mother has already made, my father, many of my relatives, some of my dear friends. That so many soldiers have made, on the day we celebrate their sacrifice. I know I should live to live, not live to die, but sometimes, trapped in the house, a holiday dampened by weather, I am reminded of endings. But not today, I promise. Today I will not count the wedges left in the orange. I will suck the juice, let it stick to my fingers, not worry about later thirsts.

Always Take Notes

When my mother died, I wrote a lot to document and process what was happening to me. It seemed important to have a reference point at which to compare my progress in the future. Now, re-reading some of the eighty pages of entries I wrote over the course of a few months after my mother died in October 2014, I'm struck by how much I've forgotten. For instance, I didn't think I'd ever forget being with my mother in the intensive care unit as she died. And yet, so many of these details have been washed away in the initial waves of grief. An excerpt today from my diary, called "Keep Moving," is at the Coffeelicious today. It was so difficult to transcribe the events at the time, but I'm grateful I did. Please, for your life, for your own sanity, always take notes.

"The nurse returns. Before she left, she turned off the computer monitor above your bed so we would not watch your vitals, watch the dipping blood pressure, your erratic heartbeats, the bells of alarm sound off as you slid closer to the edge of death. But, out in the hallway, her monitors are still on, and the line on them is flat. Without us knowing, you have slipped away, like a breath, like a shadow across the wall. This room is the last place you have seen, a plaster ceiling, bright lights, the blips of machines. No flowers. No sunsets. No oceans or lakes." 
To read more, go here.

The Anniversary Gift: What I Learned a Year After My Mother’s Death

I have a new essay today in Medium, "The Anniversary Gift: What I Learned a Year After My Mother’s Death":

A numbness, a void, had grown over my pain, burying me deep underneath. But slowly, the silk began to loosen, and someone different emerged from the cocoon. Before my mother died, I was a scared person, a worried person. I worried about what people thought of me; I was afraid to make a mistake, to be less than perfect. I felt responsible for everyone and everything and spent an inordinate amount of energy trying to fix broken people, fucked-up situations, to make myself indispensable. My entire self-worth was tied up in this belief. In that deep void, however, I discovered that the person I’d been neglecting all these years was me.

To read more go, here.

New Essay in Medium: Gone Girl

I have a new essay, "Gone Girl," in Medium:

Grief is a terrible lesson in being present, locked in the pain of immediate loss. Each day is unique in its presentness and pain, predictable in its presentness and pain.

To read the essay, go here.

New Essay at Medium: Surviving Chaos

I have a new essay at Medium called "Savoring Chaos." Thanks to Sandra Bullock, for her inspirational quote about the sometimes heartbreaking nature of life. It's stuck with me through the incredibly thin times of the last year or so.

Look at it this way: Not accepting what has happened will not change what has happened, and even if you plan ahead and buy a spare set of contacts, your house might burn down because your neighbor left a candle burning and everything you once owned is gone, contacts included. You must accept that it is all (mostly) out of your control, and it might not ever make sense. That you have emerged from Chaos, and she reserves the right to pull you back into the abyss at any time.

To read more, go here.

Essay in What Weekly: "Charming City"

I wrote this essay in What Weekly about losing a parent but gaining a home:

I have never felt at home anywhere, which is why I have always wanted to leave. When I graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in the mid-1990s, I came back to East Baltimore to live with my grandparents for a few months and apply to graduate schools. I had always viewed myself as a transient, an outsider. I wanted to go to graduate school in New Mexico. I saw myself in DC or New York or San Francisco after that. Not here, with the duckpin bowling, the hons, The Record and Tape Traders in Dundalk that had way too many used Ace of Base CDs, the now-defunct Baltimore Sign Company on Haven Street, where I and two St. Mary’s alum proofed grocery signs and deleted, much to our pain, the serial commas.

And then I fell in love. First with a girl, then with the city of Baltimore. Neither one was love at first site. Both grew on me, in a familiar and easy way that I, in my early twenties, viewed with disdain and suspicion. Although I eventually broke up with the girl after 11 years, it’s been 20 years and I’m still in Charm City—first in Canton, now in Butcher’s Hill.

To read more, go here.

Living the Dream

I dreamed that my mother and I were shopping in a boutique store. We dabbed perfume on our wrists from something resembling a Crabtree & Evelyn display. To my subconscious disappointment, the perfume had no scent. (I had hoped my mother was sending me a message from beyond the grave.) Suddenly a bunch of refugees from another planet came into the store. They were white, of Scandinavian-looking descent. A village people, perhaps. They just wanted to go home, they explained, but Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager had the unenviable task of explaining to them they'd lived their life in a simulation, they were refugee holograms from the Enterprise's holodeck, and this would be their reality now. We all boarded a train. Two older women, their white hair drawn back in ponytails, comforted each other. One kissed the other on the lips, and I could feel her cold, small lips on my own.

My mother and I were sad for the refugees. What difference did it make that their life was a dream? If they were happy there, why couldn't Chakotay send them back to the holodeck? Why couldn't I stay here in my own dream, where my mother was still alive and we did the things we liked?

I remember learning about Descartes ("I think, therefore, I am") and the "brain in the vat" as a freshman in college. Later in life, I've read the Toltecs and the Buddhists, and modern "philosophers" who posit that our lives are our own creation, that God is in inside and our beliefs determine our lives. But can we really design the life we want, free of pain, of suffering? Can we really live in a dream? Is it all in how one views oneself, one's life, or is it something greater?

Some days I wish I never had to wake up from my dreams. What difference would it make that they weren't real? Who can say this waking life is?

Winter Fruit

the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away;
—"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" by Walt Whitman

When you're younger, the bad things that happen almost seem an anomaly, so rare they are between moments of great wonder and the luxury of youth—the friend who commits suicide or dies in a car accident, an older relative stricken with cancer, a beloved pet passing. But sometime in your forties the fat, succulent sun that's been warming your face, although not as strongly as it did in your twenties, dips under the horizon line almost completely, and suddenly what was once anomaly becomes a pattern, happens more often than it doesn't. One day you wake up and realize you've had the same pain in your knee for weeks that you assumed would go away, for it always did before, but didn't. The possibly occurs to you that it might never go away, that the pain is your new reality, along with the throb on your little finger. That because your mother died last year doesn't mean that you'll receive a multi-year reprieve on grief, that in fact many people close to you may become ill, or even die, within months or years of other tragedy. You may put down several pets in the space of a few months. You may have your own health scares while worrying about others.

Living in the bittersweet twilight, knowing that the small, hard oranges will probably outweigh the ripe ones from this point onward, and how to savor the juice from the few that you do find. Or, as that wise sage John Mellencamp once said, "They say life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone."

Transformation

The slow, dreaded, but strangely relieving, transformation of your dead mother's things to just things, coachmen to mice that scatter into the field.

Gone in an Instant

Mom, I dreamed you came back and were standing on Grandma’s bed (now mine), where Michele (your sister) and I were lying together. You were wearing your old clothes and said it hurt to be in your human body because you had been in so much pain when you were alive, but you just wanted to chat and say hello, let us know you were fine. I was so happy you had come, so relieved. I stood up and held onto you and felt the realness of you, in dreaming and in life.

When we met up with the rest of the family (for how could I keep such a wonderful visit hidden from those of you who loved you so much?), I had the great idea to take pictures of you all together with my Polaroid camera. The photos slid out of the chamber, one by one, and you were in them! I was deliriously happy to have something with which to remember your visit. But when a family member asked to see them later, after you’d gone, and I went to retrieve them, I knew, with growing trepidation, that you would not be in them. It was not surprising, when I looked at them again, that you weren’t. We all know and accept the impermanence of being alive as the risk we take for fully loving and enjoying the souls who live alongside us in our journey. But the disappointment wasn’t any less. It is a terrible paradox of life to know our greatest joys will also be our greatest sorrows. But it confuses me that we believe the afterlife to be eternal joy and peace. How could it be, how could we know it so, if we cannot understand it in the context of all we had to risk, to lose? I wonder if you mourn our absence from your new soul as much as we do yours in our old, mortal ones?

A Tale of Two Siblings

Grief is a terrible child. Happiness and grief are a lot like Goofus and Gallant comic from the children’s magazine Highlights. In the magazine comic, Goofus always does the wrong thing, like eating the whole box of chocolates his grandmother has given him for Valentine’s Day, whereas his twin brother Gallant shares his chocolates with his grandmother, parents, and friends. To make you feel worse, if you are innately more Goofus-like, Gallant would probably offer you the last chocolate in his box, even if he has eaten none of them, even if you have eaten all of yours and are nauseous and vomiting.

Happiness and gratitude are a lot like Gallant. When life is good and your loved ones are alive, your feelings toward them are ever-present but not overwhelming. They are a child that plays quietly in her room while you cook dinner or wash the laundry. When you check on her, she smiles and assures you she’s okay. Sometimes, often, in fact, you seek her out and give her a hug, tell her you love her, but mostly you are content she is there and safe. Your happiness child does not poke you at every opportunity, when you are doing a crossword or driving to the store, to announce “I’m happy! I’m so happy! What should we do about our raging happiness?” Unless you are a manic-depressive and experiencing mania, happiness lives quietly, contently, a warm jacket that you do not even know you are wearing.

When you experience a loss, one’s petulant brat Goofus awakens. He tugs at your shirt while you are making pasta with the Kitchen-Aid, when you are trying to work at home, when you are sitting quietly in a movie theater or concert hall. “I’m sad, I’m so sad. I’m depressed! I’m unhappy!” He whines. “Make me feel better!” He is the baby with colic, the toddler who climbs out of the crib and wanders toward the stairs.  You offer Gallant chocolate, the whole box, but he spits it out on the carpet, rubs it on the walls. You hold him but he kicks and scratches you. You try to make him laugh but crocodile tears shine his cheeks and he screams. He cries all night and bothers the neighbors. He won’t put on his clothes in the morning. You take him to the park and he scares the other children. When you ask him what he wants, what will make him feel better, what will placate him, he doesn’t know, only that he’s unhappy and will take it out on you and everyone around you.

You cannot sleep. You cannot concentrate. Your life is a series of reflexes, reactions, trying to anticipate the next outburst, trying to quell the outburst that is happening. You do not think about the future. You cannot indulge your intellectual pursuits. You cannot even feel sorry for yourself. How to keep Goofus alive, safe from self-harm, is your only concern. If you can only get through this day, if you love Goofus and are present with Goofus and give in to Goofus, maybe tomorrow, his raging hunger will be satiated, maybe a little.

But every morning, he shakes you awake. You have been asleep for two hours. He stares at you with his bloodshot, wild eyes. He pulls at your hair.

I am sad! I need! I want!

 I will give you anything, Goofus, anything you want. You sit up. Maybe today will be different. What do you want?

I don’t know. I don’t know. He runs downstairs. A crash in the kitchen follows, plates, silverware. You pull yourself out of bed. Did the front door open? Is he going outside, without a coat? Will he dart into traffic? The door slams. Catch him if you can.

Blind Faith

"Blind Leading the Blind," by Lee Mclaughlin

I dreamed that I pretended to be blind so that people would leave me alone. I felt along the walls and tables to navigate and looked through people's eyes when I spoke to them. When I awoke, I wondered why I did not use a cane to fully pull off the effect, and whether in the dream people knew I was faking it because I lacked inclusion of this essential detail.

I sometimes wonder if I secretly want people's help but am too proud to ask. In my past experience, depending on people can invariably lead to disappointment. Now that my mother has died, and the person on which I did unconditionally depend is gone, I feel unsure of where to move. I wait for people to take the lead, to come to me. There's no sense stepping forward if you are not sure if there is any ground left where you step.

I feel like a violin that has broken a string for which there is no replacement. Do I relearn the violin using three strings, take up a new instrument instead, or do I renounce music altogether?

Perhaps I just refuse to see what is in front of me. All the love and care in the world. Maybe it is not the right thing, though. Maybe being alone with grief is necessary for healing, for strength. When you get a cavity, should you still eat sweets?

Bargaining

I dreamed we bought this motorized bed for my mom. It was operated with a joystick, and we made sure it could turn and fit into every corner of her house. Then, we were all getting ready to go out to lunch or something and my mom said, "I can't; remember, I'm dead?" and I became angry, pointing out that we had bought this bed for her recovery, that she could go anywhere with it, even the stores, and why had we invested all this time and money if she wasn't willing to to use it?

The worst feeling is that floating anger, with no origin, no actor. At whom should I be angry? My mother for dying; the world for taking her away? Myself for being angry instead of some Zen actor in the universal game? 

Anger requires action; a fist, a kick, a foul word. But I am frugal, practical, a coward; if I break a glass, I must clean it up, and why waste money? So it simmers inside, cooking my organs, my heart. What a tough steak I've become.

For when the current

For when the current rushes past us, and we grip tighter to slippery rock, the rock we swam so hard to and took a moment's rest, reflecting on the blue basin of sky, the gold-lit clouds, the sun. For when the current suddenly swells and pulls at our hands, that moment when we must decide whether to (instinctively) hold tighter or let go, for the current may drown us, but it may also wash us to shore. The current is stronger than us, so unrelenting, and we are not really sure there is a choice in anything: grasping, drowning, washing onto shore. It is a cruel truth that we build fictions around to make it meaningful, the fictions of our lives. The stories that we tell in order to believe we have a choice, that we're not a fledgling in the gutter, run over by a car before it even gets a chance to fly.

In our stories, we let go, we wash up on the shore. And when we drown, no one is any the wiser.

The stage of grief when

you begin writing bad poetry:


It's hard to know you have a ticket to leave
but on which train, when?
You needn't go to the station; the train
comes for you.
The tracks break through the earth, upending,
houses, cars, the pavement.
Amid this apocalypse,
you have been surgically removed, traceless
like a splinter
that has hemorrhaged my heart.