Your thoughts set off a chain of associations, here are a few, w/ my heartfelt thanks:
>I shared your writing w/ our small crew who just built the Temple of Remembrance in the desert. grief geeks… with drills & saws & hard hats & construction machinery & blood & sweat & dust & tears. In the service of grief. We are like grief doozers. Hahaha. Ok back to the bullet list.
>Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus. The nature of our burdens, how we carry them for eternity, how absurd it is, and yet how this carrying can be our liberation… if we figure out how to have the burden & the struggle fill our hearts. (Full text: http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm )
>Just WAIT until you read the last paragraph of Joyas Voladores by Brian Doyle in The American Scholar.
Thank you for this. When I opened my email this morning I knew I would have to come back to it later because it was going drive me into my own heart. Obit is such an essential work, and your analysis and investigation [as always] is a treasure. I always come back to your essays when I'm looking for answers to the inexplicable, when my heart asks the same question over and over. I used to carry Victoria's book around for months after reading; it felt like she was giving me permission to cover myself in proverbial ash. I am especially taken with her (and your echoed) visualizations of keeping the mouth (and heart) open, while grief cleaves and grows like antlers. I'm coming to realize that grief is cone shaped, and I will always circle the center, but it's up to me how tightly. I know I'm always coming back to Rilke, but I'm trying to embrace "This is what the [difficult] things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before they can fly."
Thank you for this Devin. As you wrote that our language is what makes us I am going to look for the word in Urdu for grief (Urdu is my mother language, I am from Pakistan) and let that sink in and then I am going to return to your wonderful piece in light of that and see what it reveals to me further. Love!
Your thoughts set off a chain of associations, here are a few, w/ my heartfelt thanks:
>I shared your writing w/ our small crew who just built the Temple of Remembrance in the desert. grief geeks… with drills & saws & hard hats & construction machinery & blood & sweat & dust & tears. In the service of grief. We are like grief doozers. Hahaha. Ok back to the bullet list.
(https://www.empyreantemple.com)
>James Turrell, the first time I walked into a room at MOMA PS1 & experienced “Meeting.” With a mirror on the floor, it would be Chang’s poem.
( https://www.vogue.com/article/james-turrell-meeting-skyspace-installation-meditation-chapel-mindfulness-escape/amp )
>Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus. The nature of our burdens, how we carry them for eternity, how absurd it is, and yet how this carrying can be our liberation… if we figure out how to have the burden & the struggle fill our hearts. (Full text: http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm )
>Just WAIT until you read the last paragraph of Joyas Voladores by Brian Doyle in The American Scholar.
https://theamericanscholar.org/joyas-volardores/#.XZ2wCX9S_IU
There’s more but that’s enough for now… I need to get back to re-reading your piece & Chang’s poems…
Oh my. Reminds me of Cixous' “the worst part of grief is the grief that doesn’t let itself be suffered”
Thank you for this. When I opened my email this morning I knew I would have to come back to it later because it was going drive me into my own heart. Obit is such an essential work, and your analysis and investigation [as always] is a treasure. I always come back to your essays when I'm looking for answers to the inexplicable, when my heart asks the same question over and over. I used to carry Victoria's book around for months after reading; it felt like she was giving me permission to cover myself in proverbial ash. I am especially taken with her (and your echoed) visualizations of keeping the mouth (and heart) open, while grief cleaves and grows like antlers. I'm coming to realize that grief is cone shaped, and I will always circle the center, but it's up to me how tightly. I know I'm always coming back to Rilke, but I'm trying to embrace "This is what the [difficult] things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before they can fly."
Thanks for writing Devin. I love how you and Victoria both wrestle with grief.
Thank you for this Devin. As you wrote that our language is what makes us I am going to look for the word in Urdu for grief (Urdu is my mother language, I am from Pakistan) and let that sink in and then I am going to return to your wonderful piece in light of that and see what it reveals to me further. Love!