I'm not really here...

The thing about grief is that it comes up when you least expect it to.

I am at a conference in New Mexico, away from my bed and my bathroom towels. I hate it. When I first got down here, I called my uncle to wish him happy birthday and when the machine picked up, my dead aunt's voice came over the phone. Hello, not prepared for that shit. It really knocked the wind out of me. Then I got a couple emails from my uncle on Tuesday as I was getting all this information from my conference. It was the perfect storm, and I had a bit of a breakdown.

I feel better now, but I can't wait to get home tomorrow.

The thing about grief is that you have no rules. If you need to sit in a dark room watching America's Next Top Model, do it. If you need to eat chocolate covered pizza, do it. If you need to plunge back into the work you've been doing and plow forward, do it. But no one... NO ONE can tell you the rules for grieving.

I'm here at the conference, but I'm not really here. And that's okay.

Summer so far...

It is no secret, summer makes me happy. Swinging in my sky chair, getting pedicures, staying up late with a book, watching The Price is Right and getting really jazzed when they pull out Plinko; they are simple pleasures, but they'll do. Our agrarian school year really makes me feel guilty that I'm not out tending to my soybean crops, but only if I've spent a particularly lazy day. For the most part, summer is about recharging the batteries, training for new classes, and planning for the next year.

The summer has also had its challenges. Aunt Marti's death has really stymied me and I have to figure out my "new normal" without her. That takes time... and a lot of selfishness on my part. I've been a little turtle-like lately. I don't want to meet new people, I don't want to think about school, I don't want to be obligated to anyone or anything. I imagine that will lessen with time, and my friends have been really gracious with me. Vitamin D, frisbee-lovin dogs and cool drinks give good comfort on days when I don't get out of my pajamas.

Aunt Marti

My Aunt Marti died last night. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last summer. It was a hard year. My Aunt Marti was a person whose motto was "go" and when she was diagnosed, it was hard for her to reconcile cancer with "go". She stopped talking as much, but she felt very deeply and very closely, you know? I have no idea what it must feel like to stare into your own mortality, to see it come nearer when treatments fail and diagnoses are proclaimed. Marti was strong, brave, and at the end, very peaceful.

I thought about a poem that might help me express Marti best, but all I could find was a poem that expressed my grief. John Hannah reads it in "Four Weddings and a Funeral".

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

--W. H. Auden