Monday, August 15, 2022

When Private Mercifully Goes Public

So already, during the first week of August, death and grieving took center stage--not because a new, confounding death slammed into my own life and promised to reshape my personal days, nights, weeks, and months, but because there was so much old and new grief to be felt personally, or to be acknowledged and responded to in others.

I awoke on August 2 intending to call a friend who'd recently marked the birthday of the teenage son he'd lost a couple of years ago. But thoughts of that death were soon eclipsed by news of other deaths.
  • Mid-morning, a college classmate shared with me in a phone call that his mother had died the day before.
  • Late in the afternoon, an email from the Boston Synagogue announced the death of a warm, wise, extraordinarily centered senior member of our congregation whose presence, spirit, and efforts did so much to make the synagogue genuinely welcoming of and responsive to its diverse members.
  • Just before dinnertime, a comment left on recent blog post let me know that the day was the one-year anniversary of the death of a teenage girl whose memorial in Quincy's Merrymount Park I had mentioned in a blog I'd posted months ago.
 
The next day, I went onto Facebook, which I haven't done regularly this summer, and almost immediately came upon a number of beautiful, intriguing works of art posted by my elementary school friend who now lives in Sweden, art therapist and artist Catherine Rogers.* At the age of thirty-four, Catherine's son Ben died suddenly of a heart attack, and not surprisingly, she continues to mourn for him.

The following words accompanied the works Catherine posted, one of which appears at the top of this post and another of which appears right here:
I've been working in vertical and horizontal journals again. Much of it is grief work. Painting, drawing, collaging and mixed media of whatever is hanging around in the studio. I'm also using Ben's music sheets as a sort of reliquary of remembrance. It's been good to speak to myself this way.
A Meister Eckhart quote comes to mind: 
'There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven.'
The Meister Eckhart quotation, the latter half of which appears in the work of art at the top of this blog, makes me imagine that bereaved parents might experience their grief as the antithesis of silence, as a relentless, agitating howling that regularly overwhelms the "huge silence inside us." But then there's that nod toward stillness and fullness in Catherine's post: the "reliquary of remembrance" that Catherine mentions. It comforts me that Ben's music is becoming part of Catherine's art.
 
When another of Catherine's Facebook friends inquired about when and if these works would be shown, Catherine explained that they existed in a bound journal and would not be shown in a gallery. But she's already sharing these works on Facebook. And since her friend asked, she's begun working on small canvasses, leading me to wonder if there could be a future show. 
 
For now, though, she's in this flow of creating and feeling, and showing is not on her mind. On Friday, she posted the adjacent photo of these four small canvases, and explained, "
I continue to be completely engaged with these small format collage expressions. I lose track of time and sink into a world that holds my deeply felt emotions and memories."

Is Catherine painting, gluing, drawing the "language of heaven"? Is she in the process of accessing and making visible the "huge silence" within herself, and, in so doing, helping the rest of us to work toward our own inner silences, or at least preparing us to do that? The comments on her Facebook page indicate that Catherine's visual conversation with herself--she said "It's been good to speak to myself this way"--has been resonating with others. She's made her private conversation public, and her Facebook friends, I among them, are grateful for that.
 
This whole question of when should the "what begins as private" become public has been much on my mind recently. It surfaced forcefully when my husband Scott suggested I write poetry and blog posts more the way I write in my own journal--with no concerns about standards, censure, and audience, at least in the early drafting, and maybe beyond that. 
 
As I began to think about the topics I could and sometimes do write about in such a freewheeling, cascading, raw, even ranting way, I wasn't sure that they should be made public. Who would be interested in them? Having just finished These Precious Days by Ann Patchett and Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson, I wondered how these writers decided--or should I say knew--that their personal experiences and ideas were worthy of other people's attention. Or were they even worried about that when they sat down to write? Maybe they wrote first and decided later, or didn't even worry about that at all. 
 
My fear has been that anything I could write about with vibrant abandon would probably be too personal--and too dull--to share. Almost conversely, I've also felt vulnerable about sharing some of the things I've been feeling passionate about, maybe because my passion is somewhat new.

All of that said, Catherine's sharing of her very personal work has encouraged me to be more public with the personal. And so does the comment that was left on my blog post last Tuesday. I first wrote about the makeshift but maintained memorial to Liana Dararaksmey in Merrymount Park last November when I was still very much in the first wave of mourning for my very good friend, Donald Burroughs. I never thought that Liana's family would see my blog post. But I also know that anyone who did an online search using Liana's name could probably come upon my blog post.

A tree has been planted at Liana's memorial.
I also didn't know that my writing about Liana's memorial would comfort her family, whom I've never met. But it did: her grandfather read it last Tuesday on the anniversary of her death and wrote to let me know. I am so glad I wrote about Liana's memorial in what was primarily a blog about my own grief. And I'm especially glad that Liana's family found it.
 
At this moment in the Jewish calendar, we are in the post-Tisha B'Av, pre-Rosh-Hashanah (Jewish new year) period often referred to as the Seven Weeks of Consolation. Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the destruction of both Temples and a number of other catastrophic events in the life of the Jewish people, is a the pivot point that redirects us away from grief and puts us back on the road--the intentional road--toward wholeness, oneness, communion with the divine, and joy. Underlying our annual journey is the understanding of how easy it is for us to forget the language of heaven when our feet are planted so much in our own individually constructed worlds--and in our individually experienced griefs, losses, and challenges.
 
Catherine painted "Double Angels" a few years ago.
But all of us with our private griefs are still "all of us." Our griefs will probably not disappear, but in sharing them, we up our chances of both consoling and being consoled. Maybe we'll recover some of that elusive silence that may make us feel at peace, at least some of the time. Thank you, Catherine, for making me feel so much more hopeful about the power and value of sharing the private.

* Catherine has given me permission to share and discuss her work here.

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Full Moon, July 2022

So already, during the month of July, like so many other people, I became fascinated by the images being sent to Earth by the James Webb Space Telescope. I began reading, looking, listening, and trying to write about the telescope and its findings that had me so excited during yet another month of discouraging political and climate-related developments. 
 
Driving to and from Orono, Maine several weeks ago, I heard interviews with two different pairs of enthusiastic scientists who, with seeming ease, made inviting and intelligible to non-scientists like myself the science behind the telescope and the revelations of its images. "We are stardust," one explained, quoting Joni Mitchell to begin his brief but coherent discussion of space, time, and life's origins. Because I understood Joni Mitchell, and therefore also knew that "we are golden," I listened even more intently.
 
The following poem didn't come easy, but here it is, "Full Moon, July 2022."
 
Full Moon. Thunder Moon. 
Buck Moon. Man in the Moon
 
Peers down. Only 
Fireflies wink back.
 
No faces tilt up from 
Darkened yards or stoops. 
 
Curious Moon. Lonesome Moon 
Peers into hilltop house. 
 
Windows cast soft light,
Warm yellow, flickering blue.  
 
Through one, silhouette studies 
Field of gold-flecked indigo  
 
In photo featured just below
The morning headline. 
 
Through one, notecard rectangle 
Glows a kindred image— 
 
Jagged copper peaks
Overlook receding 
     darkness. 
 
Through one, small group 
     sits 
Transfixed before a 
     screen. 
 
Filmy, trembling ovals 
     float, 
Embryos on an ink-dark 
     sea. 

Reminded Moon. 
     Recalling Moon.
1969 July.   

All eyes trained on 
     screens, 
And then—collective 
     gasp!-- 

Man Walks on the Moon
From whose rock-strewn yard, 
 
Earth is a blue-green bauble
Dangling in the void. 

Forgotten Moon. Slighted Moon. 
Planted before ghostly screens

In familiar living rooms,
Homing pigeon hearts
 
Trumpet love for Earth  
And dream of homecoming,
 
Focal Moon. Target Moon. 
Valued most as vantage point.  

Curious Moon. Wondering Moon 
Peers again. Scans the web.
 
Hubble humbled. Infrared. 
Space become a time machine. 
 
Pensive Moon. Poet’s Moon.  
Eternal witness to human quest.

Genius chasing new horizons 
Crafting tools that see black holes, 
 
Galaxies, and dying stars-- 
Then send their pictures back to Earth

Where scientists and spellbound others   
Marvel at Creation’s stuff.

Practiced Moon. Constant Moon.  
Waxes wise before he wanes:

A monthly marvel’s bound to pale 
Before the novel wondrous. 
 
So Full Moon offers silent praise 
For striving, sharing humankind.
 
Then turning to the fireflies 
Who flash and mate, flash and mate,
 
Oblivious to other lights, 
He muses on old news:
 
They’ll number less in August.  
Sturgeon Moon. Supermoon.

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

Warring Twins and the Writing that Breathes . . .

So already, unlike Walt Whitman, I don't "contain multitudes." But I do "contradict myself."* That's because I contain opposing twins, both of whom feel entitled to speak for and as me. While I'm asleep, they vie with each other for the prize of spinning the upcoming day's narrative, with all of its attendant facts and feelings. I wake up each morning not knowing which of them has won--and for the rest of the day, I speak entirely from the perspective of the winner, ceasing to remember that the other twin even exists.

Okay. Maybe I'm getting a little too Jacob-and-Esau** for you. Maybe you're thinking that what I'm experiencing is really just a matter of "What a Difference a Day Makes." 
 
But when you write things that you want other people to read and believe, contradictions--sanguine as Walt Whitman is about them--and  misrepresentations of fact can be a real problem. When you detect them, you need to set the record straight. If you're lucky, they will announce themselves to you with screeching clarity when you reread what you wrote, and suddenly hear yourself say, "Wait--that's not true." If you're lucky, they will reveal themselves to you before others detect them. 
 
And some misrepresentations of truth may matter only to you. I detected such a personally important misrepresentation yesterday morning when I decided to write in my journal about the blog I'd posted the day before. Rereading my blog about being in a writing drought, I agreed with its facts: yes, I'd drafted only two poems and posted no blogs in the last two months. But then I looked at the journal in my hand, and realized that I'd written more than two hundred pages in it since late May.***
 
In opposing twin terms, the twin who blogged Sunday afternoon had focused exclusively on my public writing and concluded that I'd barely written in the last couple of months, while the the twin who'd paid attention to my private writing believed I'd written constantly, plentifully, even joyfully all summer long. Hmmm . . .
 
I told my husband Scott about my opposing twin perspectives that had revealed themselves on consecutive days. When I ask for his counsel, which I often do, he routinely tells me that I spend too much time worrying about what I am doing and not enough time immersing myself in the topic or idea that's grabbed my imagination. He suspects I  get in the way of poems waiting to emerge from me.
 
This time, Scott said much of what he usually says. But a piece of advice he gave and a question he asked made strong impressions on me. "If you're standing at the edge of the water, stop looking at your toes and keep looking at the water," he advised. "Just see what happens."
 
Then he asked me, "You know how writing in your journal seems so natural and easy to you? What if you wrote poems and blogs more the way the you write in your journal?"
 
I liked the advice embedded in his question. Trying to write blogs and poems has been tying me in knots in the last couple of months.**** Writing in my journal, in contrast, has felt like being and breathing. Anything goes. Repetition is okay. Saying it again to say it better is okay. Saying it again tomorrow and the next day is also fine. Playing with language is okay. No worrying. No immediate revising. No disappointment and doubt. Definite immersion. Emotion and thought given free rein.
 
Here's a passage from my journal that is written with so much more freedom, abandon, and force than my last blog post, which it inspired.
I am killing poems. Watering them with acid. Snuffing them with drought. I just wrote that because I began reading the book that Scott gave me [Margo Jefferson's Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir], and I am thinking about the incisions this writer [Jefferson] is making. Questioning poems that shoot up. Plucking poems from the soil so they dry and die. Thinking poems are thoughts but not poems. Doubting sparks that might be poems. Drowning sparks that might be poems. I am become drought. I scorch and singe, enemy of shoots and leaves, denied the chance to unfurl. . . . I am scorched Earth, and nothing grows in scorched Earth, at least not immediately [I was thinking about Mount St. Helens]. Maybe I'll write a blog post called "Scorched Earth Poet."
But as you may know, instead of writing "Scorched Earth Poet," I wrote "Hoping for August Rain." Yawn. And if you're laughing at me, I understand: this post is all about the "I" whom Scott keeps bidding me to stop examining and worrying about. Old habits are hard to break. And by the way, I recommend Margo Jefferson's intelligent, electrifying, enlightening book.

And now another setting of the record straight. I don't contain warring twins. It was just much more fun to write about them than to discuss the possible reasons for a change in viewpoint. 

Truthfully, I don't want to give up on the warring twins idea too soon. The story of Jacob and Esau, who eventually reunite lovingly despite a lot of bad blood between them, is just the kind of topic I can run with for days.***** 

Meanwhile, even though my private writing and public writing have not been at war with each other, I like the idea of my private-writing practices entering the public writing sphere and breathing some much-needed life into my parched poems and blog posts. I may write "Scorched Earth Poet" after all. Or not.

* Photo embedded in the recovgirl. (2015, June 26). I contain multitudes. Recovering Girl, WordPress. https://recoveringgirl.com/2015/06/26/i-contain-multitudes/
** "A depiction of the power struggle between Jacob and Esau" by Yoram Ranaan accompanying Kesselman, S.C. (2020) Jacob and Esau in the Bible. Chabad.org/ Chabad Lubavitch Media Center. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3840330/jewish/Jacob-and-Esau-in-the-Bible.htm
*** I got into the habit of journaling this summer because a friend/colleague and I had been required to write morning pages as part of doing Julia Cameron's six-week course Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection. I'm planning to blog about this experience sometime soon. 
**** Adjacent painting from Jeffrey Marshall's 2015 exhibition at the Cape Ann Museum: Marshall, J. (2015, January 15-March 29). Knots: Drawings and Paintings by Jeffrey Marshall: Square Knot 2. Cape Ann Museum. https://www.capeannmuseum.org/exhibitions/knots-drawings-and-paintings-jeffrey-marshall/
***** Painting--for sale--by Steffi Rubin: Rubin, S. (2022, May 23). Genesis 33: Esau Ran to Meet  Jacob. SteffiRubinJewishArt, Etsy. https://www.etsy.com/listing/279137222/genesis-33-esau-ran-to-meet-jacob?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=Genesis+33&ref=sc_gallery-1-1&frs=1&plkey=077fc2f94c0ff91383e61f55ff4d628967d04b9b%3A279137222