in loss

no one enjoys the experience of loss. we shy/shun/run as much as we can to avoid it, and i am no different. i have these beautifully wrought defenses in place that parade around as innocuously and advantageously as something like a good memory.

my memory is a chain between myself and something that is gone. a moment. a person. a connection. a thing. a place. a hope. on one hand, as long as i'm tied to these things, as long as i have their presence in my psyche, i don't have to acknowledge the loss. on the other hand, i am a slave to the things i cling to and the filter that i view them through. most often, the best thing for me would be to just face the loss, grieve and move on.

i guess ideally i could move through loss and grief much like i navigated myself after my grandfather's death. somehow that was clear. a clean break. the grief was not shoved aside or ignored or covered up with hope. it was just present. and it has run its course and it will come back in moments and it is not a threat to me. no regrets or what-ifs or alternative ways of working out. just an end. a departure. a finish.

i had a hard spring for loss. or avoidance of it, really. something incredibly beautiful was offered and then i watched it slowly dissolve in my hands. it was the opposite of my grandfather's death. there was rippage. there were regrets and threats to my Self and so many alternative paths my head is still dizzy keeping up with them. it was hard working past it and hope put up a tough battle.

at some point i asked eden what she thought of my movement through this experience. she paused to think for a moment and said gently: it's like watching you read a book, nat.

she didn't just mean any old book though - not the blink's or even the poisonwood bible's of the world, but the emotional epics of various shapes and sizes. the little prince, the deed of paksenarrion, anne of green gables, harry potter, the little princess, beauty: a retelling of the story beauty and the beast, sunshine, the host....the list itself is an epic. and every time i re-re-re-read one of the above, i get completely involved and every waking moment not devoted to work or driving (unless i'm in heavy traffic, in which case i have been known to pull a book out while i inch forward or sit at a stop light) is given up to consuming and being consumed. i vacate my own life to live in this golden place elsewhere. and while it lasts, it's a thrilling existence.

while. it. lasts.

at the end i always hit this wall in myself when the words stop and there are no more pages to turn. and this wall has a weight and texture i can feel tear fingertips like sandpaper or red bricks and unfortunately it always seems completely unspannable. i have been known (as i did with my most recent read, the host) to finish the last page, sit in the bittersweet gratification of a story well finished, then turn to page number one and start again. even if i don't re-read it from cover to cover, i will most likely keep the book close to me for the next few days and randomly flip through to my favorite parts, slowly weaning myself off the story.

this compulsive reliving is much akin to the way i keep my memories close, the only difference is that in the case with the books, the original story is always available. it doesn't disappear or change or cease to exist. on one hand there is the fact that the story is ended, but i have the story itself to offer itself up as consolation.

i am a firm believer in the fact that the way we do the small things is the way we do the big things, so i have to ask myself how this aversion to experiencing loss with a book is lived out in my experience of loss in other places. i don't like the answer, because the answer sounds a lot like "denial parading around as hope." my equivalent of picking a book up and rereading it is the way i inhabit my memoryscape inside my head. i have the moments and thoughts and images firmly in place in my mind. science says we remember best those things we speak or think about, meaning my visual memory is aided by my a constant reliving on the events. i have a safety line in the knowledge i can always have the book back, and in the real world, i have an uncanny ability to derive a sense of security from my memories.

in addition to the memorization, i've learned to just bulldoze all else aside and have this stunning vision of how things will work out that allows me to rest in this often false and cruel hope. i have discovered hope is a kitten with a full set of teeth and claws - all the attraction and charm and as well as all the sudden bites and drawn blood. i have been trying to let hope go its own way but it hasn't been the easiest thing. at times this spring it's taken a crowbar to pry it out of my clenched fists, but it's slowly starting to yield.

sea-oh has a tattoo on their arm that says: less hope, more care.

the first time i read that i was affronted. why less hope? isn't it a good thing by definition? and slowly the obvious dawned on me: hope is inactive, it's passively waiting for things to be better and it devalues the experience one is having at this precise moment. care, on the other hand, is full of movement and action and presence. it's not trying to change the current experience, just augment it. so i guess it comes down to caring for myself, not trying to change into something i am not currently. which means i also am not wrong, or flawed or......fill in the blank.

a simple simple thing to say, but it will take a little longer to adjust those stories that whisper lies in my head.

wish me luck.

currently listening to: elusive, a boy with a thorn in his side & eyes wider than before - scott matthews.