Grief & Relief

FOUND ART AT THE CEMETERY,
ACCUSTOMED, CERMONIOUS

I came across this fabric rose
at the Garden of Rest in Crosby, England,
all by itself on the ground.

A Fortnightly ago,
I re-cycled a meaningful Quotidian post
from ten years ago, on the topic of confidence.
For the next few weeks, I have decided to search out others
that seem deserving of an appearance on the Fortnightly.

The following initially appeared
on The Quotidian Kit ~ April 26, 2010,
reprinted here with a few minor changes:
One of Ann Lamott's anecdotes that has always stayed with me is the conversation she has with a priest when she is first pregnant with Sam and can't decide what to do.This passage is tied in with her difficult decision about whether or not to let young Sam go paragliding for his seventh birthday. I like the way that "grief" and "relief" are woven together in Lamott's thought process and in the priest's advice. He says that when it's a question of feeling

" . . . a deep and secret sense of relief, pay attention to that.
But if you feel deeply grieved at the thought, listen to that."

~ Traveling Mercies, 86 ~
Of course, sometimes (this is my observation, not Lamott's), the decision that brings deep relief is also deeply grieving. Maybe in those cases you just have to focus on the relief and give it precedence over the grief. Otherwise, you end up trying to fix one mistake by making another mistake, and that never works.


Additional thoughts on grief and relief:

"The truth about our childhood is stored up in our bodies, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, our perceptions confused, and our bodies tricked with medication. But someday the body will present its bill."

Alice Duer Miller (1874 - 1942)
American writer, mathematician, suffragist

I came across this passage a few years ago in The Old Farmer's Almanac Millennium Primer. This turn of the (recent) century handbook features a lot of silly old rhymes and folklore, but occasionally a thought or two will strike me as meaningful. I was wavering on this passage -- smart or stupid? love it, hate it? I kept going back to it, even though I had moved beyond that page. It seems a rather modern idea if you assume that what she means by "body" is what we post-Freudians might call "psyche" and if we assume that "childhood," as Miller uses the term, can be equated with "grief." Thus: "The truth about our childhood [GRIEF] is stored up in our bodies [PSYCHES]."

Rereading Anne Lamott, I came across a comment that increased my understanding of Miller's perspective:

"But what I've discovered . . . is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it."

Traveling Mercies, 68
Anne Lamott (b 1954)
American writer and progressive political activist

And yet another way in which the bill is paid:

"Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed."

Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972)
American writer, lesbian activist, and salon hostess
expatriate living in Paris and writing predominantly in French

A Sad Childhood
"in a barron, isolated place"
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1816 - 1855)
Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg (1901 - 1990)

You can cover grief [or childhood] up and refuse to experience it, but it's still there, under layer upon layer of life, making you sad at the very core of your being -- that "barren, isolated place." Maybe experiencing all that buried pain as a path to self - acceptance is our 21st Century understanding of Miller's earlier metaphor of the body presenting a bill. The psyche will present its bill. Or the disasters of your life will be your bill. We either experience and accept that grief (i.e., pay the bill), or we live out our adult lives sick at heart, sick in body, soul, and spirit.

But not to sound too hopelessly hopeless! In fact, Lamott says that sometimes something amazing can happen:

"I would call it grace, but then, I'm easy.
It was that deeper breath, or pause or briefly cleaner glasses,
that gives us a bit of freedom and relief. "

~ Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, 232 ~
[emphasis added]

Here's to briefly cleaner glasses! That's a good start!

Lamott on caution / conscience / consciousness: "Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done. . . . Don't worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it" (Bird by Bird, 226).

Lamott on quieting the voices in your head: "Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. Then isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it in the jar. And so on. Drop in any high-maintenance parental units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head. Then put the lid on . . . imagine that there is a volume-control button on the bottle. Turn it all the way up for a minute, and listen to the stream of angry, guilt-mongering voices. Then turn it all the way down . . .and get back to your shitty first draft" (Bird by Bird, 27).

More of my favorites from Anne Lamott:
QK: Like a Little Gnome!
And on Kitti's List
And so much more!

The Drip
by Eugene Christopherson (1939 - 2007)

This sweet little print came into my life
when my dear friend Vickie sent a vintage copy
of the above illustrated Jane Eyre
as a present for my little grand-daughter, Ellie
-- her first Bronte novel! Unbeknownst to Vickie,
a blank antique notecard was tucked inside the pages,
featuring this tiny tot by Christopherson.

Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Eichenberg & Christopherson
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com