Despite the grief, despite my predictable frustration
with summer for being over, despite even the errant landscapers who tore out my
blue morning glories just as they were starting to bloom, I would call this one
of my happiest years. My work is getting closer and closer to being exactly
what I want it to be—my commute is nearly gone! I feel the most at home I’ve
ever felt and I have so much hope for the future—my own and, even a little bit,
for the world.
I’ve learned, sometimes, in a still-flawed way, to
dole out anger constructively. I’ve lost, most of the time, the conviction that
the world is actively trying to push me out of it.
This summer, I had to get good at grief. Grandmom died
in June and just last week a favorite mentor succumbed to a second onslaught of
cancer. It’s a dubious thing to be proud of, but I think I’ve done my best job
ever with grief. Rather than lash out (or lash inwards) I was able to simplify,
to focus on the lives well lived, to just go ahead and sleep as often as
possible. Grief feels a little like the task of learning bifocals: hurt a
little or a lot, feel dizzy, sleep, let the connections grow in my brain and let
my vision reset. If post-traumatic growth can be a thing, so can post-grief
growth. I’m proud of that growth. I’m proud of the sad strength it took to
photograph Grandmom’s house without her in it. The light and colors were new,
so may angles I had never seen before.
This year, at the tender age of 44 (oh, to stay Obama-age
forever) I learned something like attachment. I was swimming in the ocean with
my family a few weeks ago, surrounded by baby jellyfish or some other kind of
gelatinous not-stinging aliveness, and I had this thought: “I’ll probably see
these people again.” I knew I was loved. I knew I was part of the family—I’d
never known it quite so deeply before. I can maybe attribute this shift to a
higher Prozac dosage, but the less scientific part of me sees something
supernatural—something like Grandmom’s grace reprogramming and refocusing my
brain.
Right now I'm having trouble saying anything else about the year, so I'll let Grandmom's Still lives take over:
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