the Infinite

on Chronic Illness/on Deathwork & Griefwork/on Mental Health

with care, my love

Posted on 8 September 2021

sing the things you see

There’s an upsetting thing happening here at home lately, and it’s a thing I would never talk about in a public place — this being one of those kinds of places. So my challenge today is to write around it to the best of my ability.

I journal almost every day. The goal is daily, but there are days when I wake up with a migraine so bad I don’t want to open my eyes and also I would like a replacement head; and there are days I wake up and wish I didn’t exist. It’s difficult to write through and inside of those experiences. I am trying to find ways to still do it even when I am in pain, because my journal is important to me.

It’s not just free-writing; my journal is where I keep track of a lot of things, including the current weather conditions — temperature, likelihood of precipitation, humidity, dewpoint, UV index, pollen level, air quality. I write what the weather warnings are, if there are any, which is pretty often for Michigan in the summer.

Sometimes it helps me sort out why I feel physically gross in any particular way. Nauseous and achy? Probably a reaction to the air quality and pollen count. Joints hurt? Probably the stormy weather rolling through the state. Should I go outside today or will it burn me?

I keep track of the moon cycle and which planets are retrograde, even though I don’t know much at all about astrology. Tracking the moon gives me useful information, however. There’s a cycle to everything and the moon is always part of it. Insomnia? Probably a full moon. Introspective as fuck? Probably a new/dark moon.

I count up the minutes while the days are lengthening, and count them down again when they get shorter. I find it fascinating that there are periods of time, close to both the autumn and the spring equinox, when the day length seems to stop its stretching or contracting; there will be several days that almost feel like the satisfying *click* of a thing finding its place, then sitting back on its heels for a few moments. Things slow down once they reach their zenith, maybe.

There’s a section for listing gratitudes, something my therapist suggested. I have what is apparently an abysmal opinion of my life experience, and there are days when I struggle to think of things I’m grateful for beyond clean water, or the absence of a migraine, or my morning coffee. I think it’s okay that this is the case, but it bothers me that I can’t see far enough into the things that grace my life to express them. Maybe that’s trauma. Maybe that’s taking it for granted. Maybe I can’t see it because I don’t think it exists.

Sometimes I just write a sentence about why I don’t feel grateful for anything that day. I think honesty is important, especially with myself.

Several weeks ago, I finally replaced my old Yeti Blue microphone with an adorable Yeti Blue Nano. I even bought a stand for it so that I can use it podcast-style, although I don’t know what I want to say. I just know that I want to say it. (I think it’s been more than several weeks, but linear time is difficult right now)

This is the playlist I listen to most often:

playlist: deathwork & griefwork

Music moves me in ways similar to the ways that really good writing moves me. For examples of good writing, try Ursula LeGuin. Octavia Butler. Terry Pratchett. On days when I know that I need some kind of insight or a reason to keep going, I reach for Ursula.

Maybe that’s why it feels so important to write. I can put shapes to my values and beliefs. Wrap words around what love means to me, what spirituality feels like, what I’ve discovered is a true thing.

Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home
from ‘The Lost Words Blessing’

featured image is a photo by pine watt on Unsplash

on Chosen Family/on Deathwork & Griefwork/on Mental Health/on Queerness/the Pandemic

unfinished

Posted on 5 September 2021

cw: death, gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia

I’ve been thinking about what to write next, and I have been trying to understand what my teacher meant when he said that I needed to grow my roots. He may have said that I need to find my roots, although I think those two things are probably the same. I can’t grow into a thing if I don’t know what I’m growing into. Right?

That might not be true. I’m not sure.

What I do know is true is that I just finished watching a comedy special — a thing I do when I need something but I’m not sure what — and had the realization that everything I consume or think about has something to do with death. It is also likely true that comedy specials are only funny when the person performing them has a deep well of pain to draw from. And the deepest kind of pain comes from loss, I think.

The comedian, the person who wrote and performed the show, Alice Fraser, said something several times in her show and it’s got its hooks in me now while I ponder how true it is:

Only the unfinished can contain the infinite.
Alice Fraser

I was thinking about why it seems that I always consume media that is ultimately about death and its mysteries, when I realized it’s probably the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, the frequency bias, because I consciously and subconsciously avoid consuming media that does not seem to have anything to do with death. Because I am thinking about death, death is what I see. Because I think about the dying, dying is what I see. And because I believe that death is a mystery, I see profound ideas about death and dying that I know are true but are also nearly impossible to comprehend or communicate.

Although, since it is true that we are all dying because we are all going to die, maybe what I see is just that facet of Truth that I am most concentrated on at the moment; and maybe everything is about death because death is a constant. It may be a constant mystery, but there it is, all the same.

I do think about death a lot. I took my death doula training last year, about six months or so into the pandemic. It should have been an on-location training, but we did it over Zoom. I had successfully avoided pandemic-Zoom up until that point, but there I was and there we were and I am grateful for the experience.

But I still don’t know how to serve the dying and the ones who love them, from a distance, not there in person, unable to hold a hand or to let a hug linger for as long as necessary, unable to watch the body language of grief. There is something so physical about death that I have, I think, a fear that support over a video chat is not ever going to be enough. And if it can’t be enough, why should I put my effort into figuring out how I can make it work?

And that is why that thing Alice Fraser said, only the unfinished can contain the infinite, is resonating inside me like a single cello note reverberates within its wooden form.

I can say with certainty that one of the reasons I am avoiding figuring out how to do meaningful death support on the phone or over video chat, is that I do not like how I physically show up in that context. My gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia have increased in their intensity during this prolonged period of pandemic. I find it very challenging to show my face or physical self, especially when the point is to focus on someone other than myself. I have a lot of fear that I will be too caught up in my own traumas that I will be unable to do my job.

It is easier to fall apart when it’s safe.

Nobody here in my chosen family is going to misunderstand my grief and trauma experiences and mistake them for laziness. I am the person who does that to me. I am unkind to myself, disbelieving my own emotions, unable to see what I can’t see. I think to myself, nothing awful is happening to me right now, so why am I sad?

I am searching for what brings me joy, hoping to find my way to my roots, and in the search I am discovering that I don’t know what I am looking for. I hope that I can still find it, whatever it is, and recognize it when I do.

featured image is a photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

on Praxis

this is me having an experience

Posted on 3 September 2021

Warning: extreme and annoying philosophy ahead, probably

I’m different on Twitter than I am on Facebook.

Less encouraging. Less positive. Fewer attempts to capture a perfectly timed moment of connection. (I think this is why I am rarely using Instagram too — I can’t curate what I can’t imagine.)

When I tweet, I’m angry, and truthful to the point of painfulness. I tweet what I think almost immediately after I have decided how to say it. I am outraged. I am quick in a way that I used to be on Facebook, and I think that’s why I’m tweeting almost daily but barely acknowledging that Facebook exists.

It’s not strange to me that I employ a different facet of Self depending on where I am showing up or what space I am occupying. The facet of me that tweets and retweets and quote retweets feels like the most authentic Self at the moment. I’d say that the freedom to tweet whatever I want to was aspirational, but I am already doing it, so it isn’t.

What I am aspiring to is a habit of writing into the void, not just in my hardcover, lined, daily (mostly) journal. I used to write three full pages a day in it, and that has shrunk to about half a page, handwritten. That’s not even long enough for my hand to start aching.

I want to write but I also want to be noticed, and I don’t think it’s possible for me to have both of those things — or maybe, the expectation of both of those things. Expecting both things, craving both things, has led to me stifling my own words until they’re buried deeply enough that I can’t exactly find them. So this right here, this thing I am writing, is an attempt to Just Fucking Write Already. Here is an opportunity to express thoughts as if I’m wringing cold water from a wash cloth before applying it to my head. That is an extremely specific and obscure metaphor. If there’s one thing I am good at, it’s making strange connections between thoughts or ideas.

I hope that I can continue doing this. Writing in a way that is free(er) of expectation. Writing for the sake of becoming unstuck. Writing as a way of remembering that I actually have a lot to say about a lot of different things. Writing as a way to practice choosing my words carefully, while at the same time using as little filtering as possible. Writing as a way to prove to myself that I exist.

This is my current experience of Self: pain, depression, doing things because they’re mine to do, self-medicating with a few hours of video games every evening. I want to exist in a different experience, so I suppose I need to build it for myself.

I rate this piece three stars out of ten. Good effort, too meandering, far too self-absorbed, shaky philosophy.

featured image is a photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash