September 16, 2014
I'm part of a continued community of writers and mourners in a 30-day writing workshop found here: http://www.refugeingrief.com/30daywriting/.
Today's prompt asks us to explore colors- to choose a color and write from there.
That gets a wee bit exhausting. Good. But exhausting.
An extra cosmic smack-down came from the sight of these cosmos along the river as I took a walk after school today. Cosmos were, and are, my favorite flower, and Gareth often arrived at my door with a handful he had stopped to pick along the way.
He wrote about them twice in two different poems. He wrote,
I stopped outside your school's
blue gate, across the road
surrounded by a cadre of
white, pink and purple cosmos.
He wrote about leaving one- a pink one- on my desk that day.
He wrote about about how, before getting back into his car to drive away from my school, he stopped at that cadre of cosmos and picked some for his girl. He did this often.
Leaving, blooms overruled
my reason, requiring lightly
that I pick some more.
He wrote about this particular selection of cosmos, the ones he'd planned on giving me after I got off work. He wrote about them dying in the foot-well of his car in the short time it took him to go by his school, pick up books and say "good afternoon" to a few people.
This would not do, him showing up empty handed. He had planned on surprising me with a bouquet of wild flowers. My favorite flowers. He wrote about looking forward to my smile. My "growing joy." He wrote about driving to meet me with these dead flowers at the foot of the passenger seat.
Just past the place where
Valley Avenue turns off for the
County Hall, new cosmos crept
in sight, and again, I stopped.
Korea explodes in the sight of my favorite flower in the days and weeks of last summer and early fall. He and I walked through fields of them at a Cosmos Festival in Bukcheon last year and the year before. I knew the sight of them was coming again. I just hadn't expected on rounding the corner today and being met with their painful beauty. Their stunningly beautiful sorrow.
Pick me. They were saying. Pick me for that girl of yours. Lay us gently in the foot of your passenger side and if we die- if we die- do not worry. You can just get some more.
---------------
All that to say when it came to sitting down and writing to today's prompt this evening, I had not much to give. The sight of those cosmos flattened me. The wave that grabbed me and took me under was not only unexpected, but left me feeling quite spent. Out of breath. Low to the ground. I can feel myself recharging now. Happy cells regenerating. But at the moment, an acrostic poem (with the words "charcoal grey" is about all I could do. I used the non-preferred spelling of "gray" instead of "grey" as it seemed to fit better.
All that to say when it came to sitting down and writing to today's prompt this evening, I had not much to give. The sight of those cosmos flattened me. The wave that grabbed me and took me under was not only unexpected, but left me feeling quite spent. Out of breath. Low to the ground. I can feel myself recharging now. Happy cells regenerating. But at the moment, an acrostic poem (with the words "charcoal grey" is about all I could do. I used the non-preferred spelling of "gray" instead of "grey" as it seemed to fit better.
Had three (green,
blue, grey)
And loved this
one the most.
Regularly worn on
a
Chilly day on our
frequent
Outings. Here
Among a
Large collection
of brass Buddhas. That
Grey jacket. That
one with the
Really small moth
hole. You
Admired the way
it matched the cap.
Yes. But I
admired you in it.
Bridget, I can see how difficult and painful some of these writing assignments can be. I think of the word "cathartic." The minister had suggested I make a memory table. I balked at the idea--too painful. She said it would be cathartic. That word! Where did it come from?
ReplyDeleteI looked in a 1966 printing of The American College Dictionary.
Catharsis: 1. In Aesthetics: the effect of art in purifying the emotions (applied by Aristotle to the relief or purgation of the emotions of the audience or performers effected through pity and terror by tragedy and certain kinds of music.)
2. Psychoanal. an effective discharge with symptomatic relief but not necessarily a cure of the underlying pathology. 3. Psychiatry: psychotherapy which encourages and permits discharge of pent-up and socially unacceptable effects. 5. Med.: purgation.
And then cathartic: 1. evaculating the bowels; purgative. 2. a purgative.
I look at these definitions. Why do we have to "purify" our emotions? Of course, a catharsis is not going to "cure" the underlying "pathology!" And what is pathological about grief? And why would tears of grief be socially unacceptable? And now I'm angry! Is this our culture? What would dictionaries from different cultures or languages say? Does the year these definitions were printed have an effect on such negative tones? It's like: go away and cry, it's cathartic, but not so acceptable, so do it with a psychoanalyst or a psychotherapists, or in private, because it's socially unacceptable and therefore shameful. I don't think it's just the year the definitions were printed, I think we accurately sense that grief is acceptable only under certain conditions, within a certain timeline, and thinly disguised expectation of how we grieve, except by those who've been through the grief themselves.
Do you find that unexpected emotions come up when you do the writing assignments?
Sometimes. Yes. Although I don't know that "unexpected" is the right word for me. More like "unpleasant"- because the heaviness, the sadness, is to be expected, right?
ReplyDeleteI was pleasantly surprised by the feeling I got from yesterday's post and today's post. Writing about a grieving mentor made me feel hopeful, grateful, and strong. Writing echo poems today about joy made me feel happy and lighter in spirit with good memories.
It's all part of "riding the waves," isn't it?
I think of "cathartic writing" more like tapping the keg of what's already there. It's something that assists me in process what's going on inside, as opposed to something that's fixing something that's wrong in me. I agree. Nothing is wrong with us. We're feeling. Feelings don't need fixing, in my opinion. They need acknowledging. And that's what writing does for me.
I'm glad you have the avenue for acknowledging your grief process and integrating the memories of love, as well
ReplyDelete