fact #27

i look up to note 9 years have elapsed and realize, inexplicably, i've somehow grown accustomed enough to the fact of my mother's death during the almost-decade long reality of her loss to have reverted back to my previous inability to believe in the actuality of my own mortality.

i'm back to being invincible.

despite the iffy disk in my back. despite the collapsing arches of my feet. despite the sadness that will sneak up on me and twist my spirit, like a bully pinning my arm behind my back, until i SAY IT! SAY IT, LOSER! i'm worthless and i wish i were dead.

is this de-evolution?


i return today, like a child, to being utterly convinced that death is for other people and has absolutely nothing to do with me.  i'm going to go on living forever, youthful and vibrant.  or at least until the ripe-old age of 100.  and i'm going to look and feel beautiful for the vast majority of my entire century.  and never shit my pants and never go blind and definitely never lose my mind.

this, despite having numerous, actual examples in my life everywhere to the contrary. in fact, i can pretty well expect all three of those unwanted circumstances to come for me, repeatedly, if not chronically.


my inability to accept myself as a mortal being is perhaps a signifier of youth. and at 39 years old, i'm not mad at believing and feeling myself to still be young.  i tend to welcome most moments of being told i'm young and that i don't know shit. at least insofar as philosophy and spirituality are concerned.  because it is the case that i'm old enough to hear things like that and understand that it's true. 

a place in the middle, then, i guess;  my youth, a slippery, slipping thing.

this is both good and bad.

"good" insofar as this reversion to believing myself invincible denotes a hard-won acceptance and level of healing in regard to my mother's early death. i spent quite a number of years reeling from the shock-wave of her passing, not realizing in any meaningful way at the time that i was exploding/imploding/collapsing/all of the above, spending too much time swiveling on bar-stools ordering yet another tequila neat (another and another), feigning bravery and fooling a lot of people that i was Tough Stuff when, really, i just wanted to curl up on the floor of the shower and melt down the drain along with the tears said tequila was (at that time) holding back.

it is "bad" in that i am acutely aware of the increasing need to take the passage of time a bit more seriously yet in many ways i don't.  there are moments throughout any given week in which i behave with the same capriciousness and laziness as a child. and as i've just noted, my moments of recklessness have been more about achieving oblivion (escapism) than relishing in the curiosities of the world, celebrating, or seeking adventure.

i wonder, though, if this reversion to disbelief might not somehow be a necessary, or at least helpful,  ingredient to being truly adventurous? and in a more wholesome and whole-hearted way than my "adventurousness" has previously displayed itself? the belief that i've got time is a realistic show of hope and a normal mode of faith in the ongoingness of my present-day living situations. the abandonment of fear of death, in any overt way, seems necessary if one is to maintain enthusiasm for walking into certain battles or when confronting certain challenges. it is exactly my belief that there will be a tomorrow that lets me not feel as if i've mis-spent my time today by practicing guitar or reading a book or by having given myself the slow hours in which to write these very words.

i say that as if these things are only ever a retreat into the warm folds of pleasure.

i have languished over these words, returning again and again throughout the day to polish and trim, cut and paste, tweak and massage and otherwise wrangle my vocabulary, taking care to say what i think i mean and figuring out how to say it well. it isn't necessarily only pleasure i am feeling and it certainly isn't leisure. writing requires a dedication and focus that can only really be summed up as "work." the fact that i love this type of work does not disturb its identity as work.

similarly, learning is not always a pleasure and growth is often painful. building a new skill takes dedication regardless of desire.  the requirement of repetition is often arduous, not to mention totally fucking boring at times. but because i believe time to (still) be on my side, i pursue my own growth and development, trusting i will be granted a new day, somewhere down the line, in the far-off future, to relish in the fruits of skills i do not yet possess.

while writing these lines, i stop to read. i reach for my mentors and muses instinctively. i learn as i go. the words pile up; some fast, some slow.

this is not to say that i do not fear squandering time. i do. very much. in fact, i'd say i have a massive fear of squandering time. and opportunity. and ability. and talent. and youth. and energy. etc. etc. etc. and due to the (sometimes) overwhelming weight of these fears, i have spent many years either placating them with half-hearted and feeble efforts in an attempt to seem productive or just as often straight-up running the fuck away from these fears by hopping from bar-stool to bar-stool to sickbed.

occasionally, i have faced up to my fears by simply acknowledging they exist and actually focusing my time and attention on the things i truly love. lately i've been getting better and better at doing just that despite the arduousness of re-defining the word "productive." i've become slowly convinced by the culture at large that so many of the things i love are a waste of time. art, music, cuddling, to name a few. re-defining productivity requires self examination and questioning: which actions/activities fall within the scope of productivity? as someone who cares very much about literature (the reading and writing of, and the general goodness it accomplishes in the world), how is it possible that i've second-guessed the productivity of spending an entire day reading a book? especially when i remember the fact that, historically-speaking, it hasn't been all that long since teaching a female child to read became remotely socially acceptable? and especially when considering the fact that there are actually, today, a pretty large handful of places around the globe where it still isn't?

but today is my first of two days off. i move back and forth from bed to kitchen to bed, making coffee and reading further into the two books on my nightstand. i while away this first day of my weekend between pages of printed words and sips of warm, sweet, creamy liquid, quietly chiding myself for being "lazy," "selfish," "unproductive," and even "childish." shouldn't i have at least put the laundry away first? talk about having no belief in my own mortality. who the fuck prioritizes putting the laundry away when confronting the irrefutable knowledge of the inevitability of their own demise? an asshole, that's who.

so here i am, coming back around to how my unbelievable disbelief is a good thing: because an adult person who never succeeds in putting their laundry away is an asshole, too. i'm not advocating never putting ones laundry away. there's a necessary balance that i'm hopeful i can strike. with another free day coming on the heels of this one, and with every reason to believe i will see it,  my laundry can wait in the name of all things creative and wonderful and joyful.

then suddenly, there it is:

the shudder.

that horrible, grinding, glittering fear that there will never be enough time...

not enough time to read all the books i am so easily and gladly lured to.  not enough time to scribble the morning away, cataloguing my own roving thoughts and hopes. not enough time to learn to play harmonica.  not enough time to get better at having sex during day-light hours a bigger priority AND still get the fucking laundry put away.


if something's gotta give, it's gonna be my socks and underwear. 

2 weeks later

how many times have i patched and re-patched the crotch of these jeans? they are no longer suitable for work, i pull them on and smirk at myself. i am not going to work.  it is 8pm on a thursday night and i am finally putting on real clothes. after having swaddled myself in a terrycloth bathrobe all day long, i am finally trying to act like a whole person. i pull an old, faded t-shirt over my head.  i've ordered soup from the Nepalese restaurant on the corner and i've paid for it.  the only chore left is to pick it up. 

a tremendous sadness has made my body feel so heavy that this task - walking around the corner and up one small block - seem like an enormous and grueling undertaking. or is it just my heart that is so heavy?  an anvil of an organ weighing me down for weeks now and worsening in unforeseeable ways after the occurrence of an unforeseeable death.

i can feel people wondering at me.  i notice confusion in their glances. 

why is she so distraught?  she barely knew him...

comparatively, this is true. i only came into the family 6 years ago and live far from every other member of the family save for the member of it whom i married 3 years ago. but, that is, in fact, part of the pain.  i very much liked the parts of Zach i knew and, now, i can know no more.

as i learned with my mother's death, a large part of mourning occurs over what might've been and will now never be. i lay my head on my husband's chest 24 hours after learning of his nephew's death and my eyes filled with hot, sudden tears at the thought: he will never get to be this... he will never get to be someone's husband... and someone will never get to have this with him... someone will never get to have him as a husband... and all the children he so wanted so badly to make will go unmade...  he was looking so forward to one day being a husband and a father...

what is it to regret a future that is now rendered impossible?  a state of longing, pure and true.

the last time i saw Zach was just a few months ago.  this past May, my husband and I flew to TX to be present for his younger sister's high school graduation who had earned the honor of Salutatorian.  standing together in the kitchen at his parents' house, Zach, ever curious and welcoming, took it upon himself to ask me about my life: "How's your art practice?" "What's going on with your gallery project?" "How do you like being in a band with your husband?" "Are you still in love with New York City?" "What are you planning to work on next?"

the attention he paid to me did not seem at all forced or false.  his eyes and laughter as we spoke, entirely genuine and refreshing to be around. i was impressed by his kindness and friendliness, remarking on it later in the evening to Brian.  "Of course," he responded, "That's how Zach is!"

since learning of his death 2 weeks ago, i have more or less descended into an oscillating depression. i manage to get through the day by repeating to myself at intervals: you only have to survive this one day.  when you get home, you are allowed to fall down...

i usually do just that.

it might be obvious that this death has woken up deep pain in regard to my mother's passing.  it might be obvious that the shattering effect her death had on my own family and the fear of abandonment it exacerbated has been reawakened by Zach's very untimely exit from our physical reality. it may even be obvious that this fear sits on my chest like a demon, breaking my heart for all who knew him but especially his parents.  when my mother died, the only people i felt worse for than myself at her funeral where my grandparents.  an out-of-order death scrambles what we believe to be true about biology and the natural order of things.  we all agree that this is a pain no parent should know.  ever. even i, who does not have children, can feel the end of that long sword stuck in my chest;  the intense pain of wishing and pleading that time could reverse itself and one small amendment could be made to prevent this tragedy from occurring.

even at his funeral, i expected to look up and see him walking into the room. the disbelief i feel in regard to his absence is shared by everyone, but none more keenly than his parents and siblings.  if his loss has effected me this deeply, i think of what it most certainly is for his parents and his two sisters and all language leaves me.  i sigh.  and i sigh.  and i sigh.

a death shines a light upon where one has gone off-track.  all the things that, should my own life be clipped short, i do not want to have let go unfinished. i look around my studio and see the projects i have allowed to pile up, saying another day or next week or i'll float back to it one of these days...  but, more than that, it is the personal failures of behavior and attitude that call back the rush of hot tears.  all the failures of fortitude, the excuses i've made, the unkindness i've delivered in moments of anger i've previously (and recently) chosen not to corral. Zach's death, as did my mother's, points me back to my desire - perhaps my need - to remember that i, too,  am a kind person and to return to the patience practice of kindness, regardless of how difficult the pile-up of painful life experiences has made it.

as with my mother's death, Zach's departure has made me think i must do better. i must be better than what i've allowed of myself. 

i will set about the task of patching my heart just as i've patched my jeans. over and over again, as many times as it may need.