Yesterday was the 5-year anniversary of the passing of my ex-fiancee’s mother. I never met the woman, but in getting to know what I can claim to have known about my ex, and in spending a little time with her family, her mother was a larger-than-life figure and her impact on her family was visible if not measurable. I spent my morning trying to write something about her, about the day, about …. I wasn’t sure what. I don’t know what, if any, gifts I have to offer – perhaps thoughtfulness and few words, kind and maybe complicated words.
I tried to write an elegy. I started two or three blog posts. Each time I got caught up in my own thinking that 1. I have no rights to the day or her memory or …. 2. I don’t want it to be about me, but in writing anything, it becomes, in part, about me. In the end, silence felt like it was what was most appropriate.
I went back a few months to December when I addressed her, along with my ex’s late husband who passed away a month before her mother did. The sentiments expressed then seemed sufficiently large enough that I didn’t need to expand on them, at least not yesterday. What I will add is this snippet that I read this morning. It’s from a short piece called “Journal Notes” by Stephen Dunn (still working my way through his essays):
My maternal grandfather’s name was Montefiore Fleischman. He was a storyteller, a lover of women, and depending on how many mistakes we allow someone before his stature is lessened, perhaps a great man. He had the kind of large personality that sometimes can tolerably house even a major flaw.
There’s a level of grace and understanding in the way he describes his grandfather and the conflicts held within. I could see something that approached this in how my ex viewed both her mother and her late husband (and maybe how she saw herself). There’s a truth about a statement like the one Dunn makes – we all hope to be allowed our mistakes and to not be lessened in the eyes of the people we love. By all accounts, my ex’s mother was a big personality, a free spirit of sorts with a great eye for design and what sounded like a quick, and sometimes unkind, temper. I had really hoped to learn more about her. My ex thought she would have really liked me. A theme throughout my day yesterday was wanting to know what my ex would have written or has written or said about her mother.
Aside from those few attempts, I didn’t write yesterday. I also didn’t read very much. I know I spent some time looking for jobs, I went for a run and then a walk later. This morning my right Achilles is reminding me that I’m a bad patient.
The first essay I read this morning was “The Poet as Teacher: Vices and Virtues.” The opening line reads, “An obvious given: In this country a poet must have another job.” Like many of the essays in this volume, I enjoyed the language and the insights. At one point he writes about the perceived limitations of the university bubble and concludes, “But most of life is injurious to the spirit, and the ‘real world’ is often as limiting as the university. The writer’s burden is somehow to keep alive and vital amid all that’s dangerous and deadening in the world, and this is difficult wherever one is.” He later says, “It’s no accident that more good poetry arises out of crisis and dilemmas than out of triumphs and jobs well done. We are less likely to confront self and world when we’re satisfied with self and world.”
For the past month or two, I have been living in this very strange space in which I spend much of my time thinking, observing, and writing. It can’t / won’t last. As I wrote yesterday morning, one of the things I tried to contemplate was how fortunate I’ve been in the world of loss, more specifically the absence of death. I have no tally marks in the column of loved ones I’ve lost – my immediate family is all alive and well. I can remember back in college, thinking I don’t have the torment, the internal anguish, to be a good writer. Now I think I neither have the torment nor did I ever carve out the time. I think I gravitate towards writer’s like Dunn and Hass, men who seem to have lived relatively peaceful and torment-free lives, because their observations are those of the “every man.” I don’t want to bring lots of death and despair into my life – the world will probably take care of that on its own. As such, I tend to focus on the minor struggles of everyday, a sort of poetry about quiet desperation. I know I’ve mused about whether any of this thinking would have been possible within a happy relationship. I tend to think not.
What I hadn’t considered, until recently, is the time and space required to do these things (write, read, think, live). Quite honestly, I’m not sure it’s possible to do it seriously and hold down a 9-5 job and have a meaningful relationship and enjoy friends and spend time with family and etc. etc. etc. Do all artists need to be struggling artists? As a writer, I don’t know “how to keep alive and vital amid all that’s dangerous and deadening in the world.” I think some of the answer might be in having the right mindset, not walking through the world blindly, but even then… what’s next? What does one do with the observations, especially if time is at such a premium.
At various points in my last relationship (and even now), I would talk about wishing I could retire. Our current societal norms say I’m far too young for that (and I don’t have the means). One question people would ask is, what would you do with your time? My answer was always, I’m not sure. I think I’d spend the first few months doing nothing, just because I can…. and then I’d probably settle in to volunteering and doing lots of different things (hiking, reading, learning). My ex-fiancee and I would talk about owning a bed and breakfast – I think we both wanted the type of life where we were accountable only to ourselves, and where the days allowed for more freedom of thought. I’m sure we were underestimating the work and the financial risk/rewards of such a life, but it certainly had its appeal.
Having this type of time, the time I’ve enjoyed these past few weeks, has brought me closer to understanding the value of down time and space. It’s also posed a whole new set of challenges in trying to figure out how to live a balanced and fulfilling life. How do I build the life I want? And if I set upon doing that on my own, will I be flexible enough to be willing to merge it or change it for someone else or will I just look for someone who fits in my already established routines?
Maybe instead of describing the sky every day, I should try to articulate what I want in a different way each day. This of course goes against some of my inclinations to want less (that whole Buddhist thing about desire causing suffering). Maybe it’s about reducing “frivolous” wants and focusing on the more vital desires (quality time, quality people, quality experiences). That’s a post for a different day.