All Lies and Jest
A Stack Deserving of More Readers
Amidst the latest tedious analysis of mask and vaccine efficacy and danger — a seemingly endless pileup of data — Lord help us — there is a little constellation of what I like to call Awake Substackers with poignant, wise stories and observations that will help us through the coming storm.
I like this post because it concretizes so much of the grief process I found difficult to put into words in my last post — admittedly, hastily written at 3AM with a huge headache after a 9 hour caffeinated drive, and thus an outgrowth of a weird emotional state of attempted wind-down and desire for connection in the wee hours.
The delayed reactions and dissociation. The need to feel pain very deeply. The bizarre lifetime math that one does.
By no means an identical story, but with so many uncanny similarities to my own, I like to share it for a feeling of solidarity amongst those of us who know, and education for those who don’t yet know.
“I was 26 ½ when we met (Feb 1998), he had just turned 44. At 43, I became a widow. Seventeen years of my life. I could not avoid the knowledge that by the time I reached the age at which he died – 60 (61, barely - 61 and three weeks), I would have had as much time without him, 17 years, as I had with him. I did not want to ever get to a point where I would not cry. But I knew I would.
And now I have. I am 50 now. It has been 7 years. And I already do not cry.
This is worse. Not crying is worse than crying forever.”
It’s not a long post, and well worth reading in full.
My own post and Jen’s story reminded me of another scene from a favorite movie that helps to elucidate the nature of this type of grief. I have an endless series of movie clips in my mind that often serve as metaphors.
This scene was incredibly mystifying to me at age 15, particularly the seemingly callous reaction of the Native American warrior, who we learn later was the best friend of the man she was mourning. But at age 47, this scene is crystal clear.
“"Peace is not something you can force on anything or anyone... much less upon one's own mind. It is like trying to quiet the ocean by pressing upon the waves. Sanity lies in somehow opening to the chaos, allowing anxiety, moving deeply into the tumult, diving into the waves, where underneath, within, peace simply is." — Gerald G. May
"Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force.... It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled, and riotous ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from the soul."
~ Francis Weller: https://www.francisweller.net/
That video is age restricted, but we teach gender dysphoria to babies? What is this thing that has sought to destroy our sense of what is appropriate? I am grieving for a culture that has gone insane.