[ Note: This entry is a companion SSW (silent sustained writing) to the previous posting two weeks earlier.]<\/p>\n
February 6, 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n Is there such a thing as a grief hangover? Is the whole thing a hangover? Two weeks ago, on Ang\u2019s birthday, I wrote that I had to power through to February 5, and then start breathing again. Today is February 6, and I\u2019m breathing, but it\u2019s a bit labored and troubled. I was thinking about the \u201cgetting through\u201d or \u201cgetting to\u201d\u2014but not the \u201cgetting beyond.\u201d What does February 6 and beyond look like?<\/p>\n I think such things because today had such prominent features to it\u2014a mixture of (1) the world in your face (snow day in February) and (2) entrenched defiance on my part not to let the world interrupt who I was, and wanted to be, and what I wanted to do today. I\u2019ve fallen into a solitary morning routine the past year or so, and, like an old cranky person, I\u2019ve grown protective of it. I wake up early, stay off the computer (the only time of the day that\u2019s true), and I engage in an increasingly regular ritual of getting ready. I make lunches; I brew coffee with the French press; I leave a full thermos for the girls to have when their day starts hours later; I clean up the night\u2019s dishes and run the dishwasher, hoping to earn some credit (and to help the kids avoid censure for the mess they left); I put on WFMT, and find accompaniment in the soft tones of both the music and the through-the-night announcer; I shower; I dress, my clothes having been laid out the night before (another old-person tendency creeping up on me\u2014way over-preparedness about trivial things, obsessiveness in procedures); I look through the house to see what the others will wake up to, and I try to smooth out what could disturb or inconvenience them.<\/p>\n Today was just another one of these mornings, but everything was amped up, all these tendencies put on steroids. First, I woke up way early. Was it the worry over the weather? I wish I could say it was, but the truth is I\u2019ve been waking up earlier and earlier\u2014to such an extent that I wonder if I sleep at all at night. It\u2019s become just another brief nap\u2014that I, of course, need more of, since I\u2019m not sleeping at night. Is it the January-February grief cycle that\u2019s disturbing my sleep? Maybe. I think it\u2019s more the grief I feel over my broken heart of life at SXU\u2014the stress of committee and department work, the inability to hit the stride of making things work, finding the truth, living our mission, bonding with colleagues, transitioning out of past roles, and on and on.<\/p>\n The morning routine has been a kind of retreat for me into my own solitary peace. I\u2019ve felt so alone\u2014whatever the cause\u2014be it Angelo or the sorrows of SXU\u2014and I\u2019ve found comfort in the quiet and regularity and interiority of computerless\/deviceless domestic procedures, followed by the zoned out, but purposeful drive in, with minimal traffic (so important to beat the traffic, and my earlier and earlier start to the day was motivated by a quest to find that time that was early enough to beat the rat race. I\u2019m not sure I found it, but I know it\u2019s before 4:55 AM. At some point I\u2019m going to begin hitting up against the prior day\u2019s late traffic rather than this day\u2019s early traffic).<\/p>\n So this morning\u2014out of a desire to protect the routine, which was threatened by the snow, and to increase the psychological medicine of \u201cbeing of domestic service\u201d to help the family get started on their days, and to lean in a bit hard to the \u201cman of the house\u201d father stereotype (but in a good way?), I woke up an hour early, not planning to do all I did, but just falling into it. I decided to unbury three cars, get them started and warmed up (not that they\u2019d stay warm, but so that the windows could all be cleared, at least for the time being). Loretta\u2019s car had a broken scraper, so I switched that out with mine. That was hard to do, since mine is like the most luxurious, most functional scraper-brush on the market. But I felt so proud to surprise her, and so proud of my sacrifice, which seemed to say, \u201cI will do anything<\/em> for you, dear. (Yes, even this.)\u201d<\/p>\n This morning, in some kind of productive frenzy, I even turned on the computer before going out to dig out the cars. I thought, \u201cI could start the cars, brush them off a bit, leave them on, come back in the house and read a report, then go back out and finish up the cars.\u201d I was moving\u2014and I wanted to get ready for SSW, about which I had changed my mind several times (write about grief? write about SXU\u2019s troubles? write about this afternoon\u2019s committee meeting and our lost way?).<\/p>\n It was later when I got in the car and started driving that I realized what was going on with all my productiveness that morning. A song came on\u2014as it often does\u2014and a miracle of emotion and utter stopping of what was going on, and a transport to the Other Place (where you needed to be all along) takes place.<\/p>\n I came to realize there might be something wrong with my morning routine, that I might be escaping from life, withdrawing inward, trying to control the uncontrollable, trying to secure some inner peace\u2014but maybe leaning in too far with it.<\/p>\n I have an image from long ago of me wiping the kitchen counter in a circular, repetitive motion, in a Zen-like way, while the kids, all five of them, when they were young, were in the other room, being joyful and crazy and annoying and impossible. My wiping motion was control: “I\u2019ve pushed back the forest, and this space is mine, and it\u2019s clean, and it\u2019s regular, and look, it\u2019s clean\u2026and round and round, it\u2019s clean, see\u2026? Peace.\u201d There in the kitchen was my little clearing of counter\u2014and the radio or little under-the-cabinet mounted TV with the ballgame on, quietly providing other context, giving me the illusion of not complete escape into the interiority of my own circles and clean space\u2026: \u201cI am still connected (and how could I not be, with those five dervishes of energy, just in the other room, bursting with so much growth and drama and other reality?).\u201d<\/p>\n So much of my dream in life has been the quest for such peace, and I wonder if my current morning routine\u2014justified in this way, is still just a little too much. Am I out of balance? Did the growing of the kids, and their movement into other rooms, farther away, allow me to fixate too much on my circles?<\/p>\n Yesterday we had Ang\u2019s godparents and his cousin Jane and her husband and three dervishes of kids over to have a celebration of Ang. I\u2019m grateful for the bustle of life in such an event. Loretta\u2019s day in the setup was nonstop\u2014a full day beginning with a work out, Mass, a trip to the cemetery, shopping at Costco, shopping at Jewel, going to Freddies (yes, Freddies) to pick up the chicken parmesan, gnocchi, lasagna, ravioli, meatballs, and salads. I am grateful for the way the kids all chipped in, the way everyone came over, the conversation, laughter, storytelling, and reminiscing. I was a happy and sociable participant in the gathering\u2014but also a little quiet and off to the side. Was I thinking about my morning routine, that was just a few hours away? I was a bit.<\/p>\n Was I feeling the grief hangover then? Was the hangover the result of the social interaction or the intense inner withdrawals and worries over getting things done?<\/p>\n One big lesson I learned from Ang was that \u201cwe\u2019re not in control\u201d\u2014and a version of that lesson came home to me when the song came on. Without planning, without setup, the transport took place. It was Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly in a duet of \u201cTrue Love,\u201d from the movie High Socie<\/em>ty (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Fl5EPEzukNQ<\/a>).<\/p>\n When the song came on so many of my prior\u2014and unperceived\u2014anxieties and preparations became apparent. I had been stressing out about how to honor this 9-year anniversary; maybe I would write about random and brief Ang memories in SSW (the stoplight at 58th Avenue that starts up a conversation with him every day<\/em>?); maybe I would focus on the gratitude I felt for the text message from Lorenzo, \u201cthinking of you today\u201d; maybe I would write about SXU\u2019s leadership, and how they are pulling the rug from so many supports that have enabled SXU to grow and be strong over the years\u2014i.e., maybe I would not write at all about Ang, because it\u2019s just too hard, too involved\u2014next year will be the year, that ten-year mark, and my “tenure” in grief will have been earned, and then the turning point.<\/p>\n The song brought Bing Crosby\u2019s silky smooth baritone that alone in itself is miraculous. But the duet is with Grace Kelly, who is more than \u201croyal\u201d\u2014what is Grace Kelly? Magic is too harsh a word; there\u2019s something softer, more beautiful, more transient and eternal, hopeful, and absolute about her, or the symbol of her. Together they sang:<\/p>\n For you and I have a guardian angel It\u2019s romantic love they\u2019re singing of\u2014but it\u2019s another kind of love, too. The love of a protector. Is Ang the guardian angel? Or is there a guardian angel unseen keeping him close to me? The words and feelings of these lyrics swell up and fill me. Time, leisure, love, protection, generosity, sharing, and eternity: Bing and Grace sing it, and I drive on snowy streets without a word from Ang these long nine years, but with a guardian angel\u2019s efforts, breaking through, giving me a forever that might be, maybe?, redeemed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [ Note: This entry is a companion SSW (silent sustained writing) to the previous posting two weeks earlier.] February 6, 2020 Is there such a thing as a grief hangover? Is the whole thing a hangover? Two weeks ago, on Ang\u2019s birthday, I wrote that I had to power through to February 5, and then … Continue reading The Day After February 5 [2020]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ang","category-just-life-in-general","category-ssw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em>On high with nothing to do
\n<\/em>But to give to you
\n<\/em>And to give to me
\n<\/em>Love forever<\/em> true<\/em>.<\/p>\n