Author: ferylfiles

Today snuck up on me like a rogue wave. Big. Calamitous. Surprising. It’s the aftermath of the big waves that’s so rough. Feeling exhausted. Feeling small in a big ocean. I know not every day is like this. I know not even every moment is like this. But I would be a damned liar if I didn’t admit they happen regularly.

I miss my person. I miss my best friend. I miss my closest confidant. I miss my greatest champion. I miss the love of my life. And I appreciate so much the folks who remind me of the ways he’s still with me, in my heart. But I’m bereft of his hugs and the way he curled around me. The way he put his face in my neck telling me how much he loved the way I smell. Holding on to me like we were the only two people in the universe.

I feel amputated. I feel naked. I feel very alone.

I also know feelings are transient. I acknowledge them. I feel them. I’m devastated by them. And I wait for the sunshine again.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was sit surrounded by and reading the 1976 Bicentennial Edition of the Worldbook Encyclopedias my parents got for my three older siblings. I loved those books like they had been specially purchased just for me. I didn’t care that they were out-of-date, I had all this knowledge at my fingertips and it was mine for the searching and soaking in. One of the best parts of immersing myself in a particular subject was the suggestion to find more information on other topics at the bottom of each section. The rabbit-hole habit probably began there. Now I can use my laptop or phone, but that same insatiable curiosity manifests daily.

Recently, dear friends (some I’ve known since middle school, some I’ve only met recently because of their connection to Bryan) have generously been sharing all kinds of music with me. One friend recommended Michael Brecker’s 1987 eponymous tenor* sax jazz album. I can say that much of it is beyond my understanding, but “Cost of Living” reminds me of the background music to a film noir when the heroine is about to ask the PI to help her out and he immediately falls in love with her; I absolutely adore it. Of course, I had to find out, who the heck is this Brecker dude? Possibly the best tenor* saxophone player ever and if there’s saxophone music on some famous person’s record, Brecker more than likely did it. Impressive barely scratches the surface of his career. While reading about him, though, I discovered that he passed away pretty tragically from leukemia in his late 50s–a bright, energetic light gone too early, an all-too-familiar story.

I also learned that Brecker converted to Buddhism in his final months before passing. This on its own isn’t all that remarkable, but many jazz musicians attending his funeral service were also Buddhists. Jazz? Buddhism? I had no idea. So of course, “to learn more” I googled the two terms together and found this incredible article: https://tricycle.org/magazine/jazz-and-buddhism/ Yoshie Akiba took her heartache and turned it into creating a sacred space for folks to experience jazz, Japanese cuisine, and zen. Of course, this led me to finally pick up with earnestness the book Bryan has had on one of our bedside tables the whole time I’ve known him: Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal talks on Zen meditation and practice by Shunryu Suzuki.

Bryan referenced the importance of this book for him in the time following his divorce. I’d picked it up a couple of times before, but never really delved into it. Bryan talked about how the meditative practices helped him navigate anxiety and fear, the uncertainty about the future. He talked about the importance of approaching everything with a beginner’s mind. When we try new things with the eagerness of the unknown and unfamiliar we approach it differently than if we approach it as if it were old hat. “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”(21) Whether it’s divorce, widowhood, a new career, a big move, there’s no road map for the individual’s personal experience. I have experienced the incredible discomfort of what now? Who am I now? And here I have the seeds that my husband planted years ago. Be here now like a jazz musician in the middle of a solo performance or a meditating Buddhist. Experience this time with a beginner’s mind. You’re not supposed to know how to do this. None of us are. We’re making up the notes as we go.

Which leads me to the song that has been in my heart all week, Jonathan Butler’s “When Love Comes In” from his newly-released album Ubuntu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZjG1t6Vdxs

What I do know for sure
Is I don’t know (Oh I don’t know)
Just how this part of the story will end (Oh no)
In the end all I can say (All I can say)
Is love will lead the way
And this is where love comes in
Comes in

After all is said and done
Only one way, ain’t but the one
And this is where love comes in
Oooo
Love comes in

We all suffer. I’m not unique in this. It’s all of us. But what we have is love, and love will lead the way.

*Please note the change from alto to tenor sax! Oopsie-daisy! :o)

There’s a scene from the sit-com, Friends, that always makes me laugh. The one where they try to move a couch up flights of stairs and Ross coordinates and oversees the effort. The word “pivot” gets thrown around a lot with chaos and hilarity ensuing. My bestie and I enjoy referencing this one and she teases me a bit (gently, and with a whole lot of love) that I use the “pivot” technique as a coping mechanism.

While she was here for both visits, I’d get overwrought with tears and grief and then I’d change the subject quickly with some non-sequitur or goofy observation. “Pivot!” she’d say with a twinkle. It’s so true that it makes me chuckle now thinking about it.

The rain, the sunshine, and the heat have meant that my backyard lawn has grown gangbusters. Another thing confronts me that Bryan normally took care of. I once asked him to teach me how to use our mower, but he had the same sense of ownership over the lawn that I do over the laundry. I don’t know why. Just the way it was. Now, the thought of doing this chore that I should be able to do no problem paralyzes me. Pivot. I don’t have to. There are neighbors and teenagers and folks willing to do it for cash or cookies. Sold!

I have to figure out how our irrigation system works. Maybe this will get outsourced as well. Pivot. I don’t know. But this sense of “I have to do it allllll by myself” is horseshit. (sorry, Mom) I can’t. And I won’t.

Pivot.

Janis Joplin’s cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” is iconic. She died just a couple of days after she recorded it. There’s so much heart and guts in what she offers up in the studio, and it has long been a favorite of mine. I really love P!nk’s live cover, too.

Recently I’ve done a deep dive, or as I like to call it going down the rabbit hole, of all different covers from the original by Roger Miller to Kristofferson himself. I’ve listened to interpretations by Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Kenny Rogers. I wasn’t terribly fond of Jerry Lee Lewis’s version, but I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t like the music or because he gives me creepy, old man vibes. I stopped halfway through the Statler Brothers because if they’re not singing “Hello Mary Lou,” I don’t want to hear it. I stopped on Gordon Lightfoot, because purrrrr, and went down a completely different rabbit hole, but that’s a story for a different day… Willie Nelson definitely gets an honorable mention from me.

I love this song because it’s a fully human celebratory lamentation and I grok it more and more with age and experience. “Feeling nearly faded as my jeans.” Yes. Exactly like that. And the line “But, I’d trade all of my tomorrows, for one single yesterday” resonates. Things are more complicated, but it rips to the heart of missing someone that much. “Well, I wanna call him my lover, call him my man I said, I call him my lover, did the best I can, come on…” All of this.

When I was a kid and my mom took me clothes shopping, I often overheard her explaining to the clerk helping us that her daughter was “you know, in that awkward in-between stage.” I know she didn’t mean to become the internalized voice of how I see myself perpetually in an awkward in-between stage, she was just trying to make sense of a growing kid who didn’t fit off-the-rack clothes very well. I still don’t. I’m 5’8 and have a 6′ arm-span. My legs are longer than my 6’1 husband’s were or my 5’11 kid’s are. But this awkward in-between stage is such an apt description of how I’m processing grief, too.

We’re probably all familiar with the stages of grief–denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and how they can overlap and jumble, or be multiple at once. I was pretty aware of how sadness and heartbreak would be part of my reality for a long time. What folks don’t talk about much, at least from what I’ve noticed, is the weird shit that comes with grief. Awkward. When I laugh, it’s louder, harder, more intense. Food either tastes amazing and better than ever or I want absolutely nothing to do with it. The gamut of emotions smacking me like a tuna in the face every day has me scratching my chin going, “wha’happened?” I want to hide in a blanket fort AND hug every stranger and be best friends with their dogs. Comedic literary tropes about widows come from stereotypes based in fact. Here we’ve experienced loss and death and are craving life and connection. No worries, we live in a small town and no major decision for a while, but those feelings are THERE, intense and incredibly awkward.

I’m trying to find stable ground and understand this new reality while also feeling like an over-inflated balloon that someone just let go. There’s no framework or context to put these things. So like everything else I acknowledge them and feel them and embrace the awkward.