Hello, my dears ~
Today’s letter offers perspectives on grief and loss.
Please proceed with care…
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I want to write about grief and allowing.
Grief is my daily companion right now. I see it moving through the lives around me in many forms: sorrow that is newly arrived, an ache carried for years, the collective heartbreak stirred by violence and injustice in our world. So often it comes out as anger or despair. Grief feels anything but allowing.
I’ve been longing to watch Come See Me in The Good Light, the documentary tracing the life of American poet and activist, Andrea Gibson. At the same time, I’ve been resisting watching it because, having followed Andrea’s life and poetic artistry, their spirit has woven itself so deeply into my way of seeing the world that I can hardly bear their loss last July. Though I often listen to their spoken word poetry and weep, I haven’t allowed myself to grieve as deeply as I sense it will come when I finally sit down and immerse myself in witnessing their fierce and tender life.
My eyes fill with tears right now as I type this moment’s truth: watching the brilliant vulnerability and radical love of Andrea’s life and art against the backdrop of our times, rife with personal loss and global devastation, threatens to consume me with sorrow.
I sense it might open griefs I have carried quietly for years.
Staying on this side of the experience – checking to see if I’m “ready” to view the film – actually freezes me in a state of anticipatory grief in the guise of self-protection. You see, I’m already grieving. I touch the lump in my throat, try to swallow. Can’t.
My mind pretends it is circling the grief, waiting.
Staying safe.
But the waiting is the grief.
Heart pounds in my chest as I approach the threshold…again…and listen. Is today the day to watch? Am I ready to allow? Can I touch my grief?
I collect myself by remembering what is true.
I know my body can ground beneath the cat on my lap. I know it’s my unchecked thoughts that trigger fear. I know allowing is a shoreline I can walk, moving to higher ground when my body says so.
In this space with you, dear readers, this letter helps me locate my truth. I had been listening to the part of myself that labeled my waiting “weakness,” but perhaps allowing grief is less about pushing ourselves to feel everything at once and more about trusting the rhythm by which our hearts unfold.
Maybe this is true for you, too, wherever grief is waiting at the edge of your own shoreline.
I can trust that instinct and allow my own unfolding, my own tears to come in their time. For now, I feel the steady weight of the cat on my lap and the quiet rise and fall of my breath. Grief is teaching me, even here, how to be a kinder companion to my own heart.
With love and warm companionship,
Nancy |
