Sorrow

[vaneramos]

I have been reading about death. A strange time for this: a summer when I've been feeling more well and purposeful than I'm used to. But avoidance is the habit I wish to break, and isn't it better to address difficult matters of the soul from a position of strength?

From Mark Doty in Heaven's Coast:

We trivialize pain if we regard it as a preventable conditon the spirit need not suffer. If we attempt to edit it out, will it away, regard it as our own creation, then don't we erase some essential part of the spirit's education? Pain is one of our teachers, albeit our darkest and most demanding one."

Doty describes wandering into a big church in New York City and finding unexpectedly a memorial to those living and dead with AIDS, where he collapses. He asks a Hispanic woman standing nearby for a tissue. She rummages through her purse but finds none, and goes away. He keeps trying to leave the memorial, but every time falls apart. Sometime later the woman returns with a napkin. He cherishes her gesture.

We are helpless to experience sorrow without one another, he says.

I haven't had close encounters with death except in university when my roommate and his girlfriend (she was one of the people I most adored and admired) were hit by a drunk driver. I have never seen a loved one decline through a protracted illness.

On the other hand, I have experienced overwhelming loss due to alienation like no one should ever have to experience. Prior to coming out as a gay man, I spent eight months in a deadly struggle. I've always identified it as my worst bout of depression, but today that word seems to trivialize the pain.

I had to accept something about myself that denied everything I believed. I must lose the safe, comfortable, honoured lifestyle built for myself and family. My resistance was so crushing, I couldn't get out of bed sometimes. My wife loathed me. My friends (all evangelical Christians) gradually stopped associating with me. The ones who came to visit verbally abused me. My parents, at first supportive, didn't have the resources to understand what I was going through, and cut me off emotionally. By my own intense homophobia, I had isolated myself from community with gay people. I had two friends and my doctor whom I could talk to without facing judgment, but no one was in a position to identify with the choices I had to make, reassure me about the consequences, or stand up for me to those who were treating me badly.

Without anyone's understanding, I was indeed helpless.

I felt the loss, especially the difficulties over access to my children, and allowed myself to grieve, but never found a mirror in which I could see my own strength and resourcefulness reflected back, no one except my children to whom my survival seemd to matter, and no one who could tell me confidently I would be well. I survived by establishing an attitude of avoidance toward the world and normal emotions.

A friend recently commented that people sometimes use mental illness as "a crutch that allows them to continue destructive behavior." The idea disturbs me. Politicians in this province have used that very rationale to eliminate programs designed to help addicted and depressed people get back to work. From the outside I might have seemed to be relying on helplessness. On the inside I was flailing around to find the source of my own strength. Sometimes I found doors, only to have them closed in my face. Until recently it seemed nothing would ever work, and despair visited frequently.

The first new friendships I made were unstable and ill-conceived. It has taken me years to recreate myself, the way I behave in the world and ask people to treat me. I've had a luxury of time unavailable to most people trapped in their own minds. For the first time I'm willing to admit that, despite my parents' lack of empathy, their financial support was invaluable to me. I did not become utterly dependent on them; I had time to learn to trust myself. I feel stronger now than ever.

Yesterday was the saddest day of the summer, dropping the girls at home, not knowing for sure when I'll see them next. In the car leaving Lindsay, I was tempted to put an upbeat CD in the player. I thought, "Time to move on, get organized, get busy to distract myself from the pain."

That's the way I've habitually acted, and it's wrongheaded. What I've learned from reading Doty—a thing I've known before, but had trouble apprehending—is that sorrow pushed away is only deferred. I've deferred it for years, but now I've arrived at the place of reconciliation.

I am my father's son, and tears do not come to me. Lately I've noticed how I hold them in check, not because I need stoicism now, but because it helped me survive as a sensitive boy in a small town.

Not feeling the tug of tears, I went in search of them, opening my throat, the place where things get blocked. I played sympathetic music: Fire Requiem by Nicholas Lens—at first it seemed too morbid, but I resisted the inclination to minimize my distress, by switching to something lighter. Before long, other body parts began to harmonize with my throat: first eyes, then diaphragm.

After a few minutes I thought that was enough, started to step back, but the voice inside had found itself, growing louder, more insistent. So I went with it until the energy expired. The requiem played until I reached Toronto, then I switched to something gentler and sweeter, Canteloube's Songs from the Auvergne: a shepherd girl's sad longing for a beautiful boy across the valley.

Doty says:

I will look at the great black tree of the world through the window of bitterness, the window of misery, I will put my face to that dark, and I will say what I see. Silence is submission to the irreplacable order. For Job, silence equals the death of the self.

This from an agnostic. I too can relate to Job's complaint.

It would be dishonest to say I'm ready to face that darkness baldly, or will be ever. For the past two years I've relied on mirtazapine, an antidepressant, to ease symptoms of anxiety. It allows me to sleep more consistently and deeply.

But this therapy is part of the reason I can commit myself today to a renewed honest experience and expression of feelings. Not only the good ones, like love, although love has also helped me unseal this openness. Western culture teaches us to expect mostly pleasure and fulfilment in life, but that is unrealistic. The best we can do is be prepared for whatever comes, and treat happiness as a gift from the universe.

Comments

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, Bruce. It occurs to me that your music says what you see, through your window on the world.

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if you found my words hurtful.

I can't even begin to comment on this post otherwise. I'll just leave it at that.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Well, not offended, but it was on my mind frequently this weekend. I can't even say I disagree 100 per cent, just doubt that it's a useful approach to take. Mostly I have healed myself, but some people have helped, and invariably they were ones who tried to empathize.

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

They tried to empathize (and did) because, as bad as things got for you, you never took to living on the street or becoming addicted to drugs.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

On second thoughts, maybe it is useful. In the case of the crack whore in the garden, it is not pragmatic for me to feel sorry for her or get emotionally involved. And people close to those addicted or mentally ill must realize they are not responsible for the ones behaving destructively, and set up clear boundaries in order to look after themselves. I have had to accept that about people who've distanced themselves from me at times.

But for myself, struggling to find my own source of strength and motivation, it has been essential to avoid distraction by my sense of dependency and helplessness. And anyone in a capacity or desire to help (no one can do it alone) must adopt the same affirmative stance.

[clairenolen.livejournal.com]

what a wonderful experience, Van!! and thanks for sharing it with us here today...
death and dying in all it's shades and forms seem to be coming up for many of us right now. And i believe it's good. We need to embrace everything in order to grow and to heal.
great pic of Brenna!
I do hope you will see your girls soon again..:-)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Mia, knowing you and reading your journal has been a catalyst for me as I think about expressing my feelings more.

Doty also writes about a museum his father used to take him to. One wall was dedicated to dozens or perhaps hundreds of little doors. Opening one, you could look through a window into a large tree, revealing perhaps a nest or a few leaves. Through any single window you could not see the whole tree.

This reflects an idea I've held for a long time; why I believe so much in learning about and honouring other perspectives on the world, while doing my best to articulate my own. I want you to know how much I appreciate your outlook on things, and your expression of it.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your comment. 9/11 had a profound spiritual effect on me, even though I didn't observe it firsthand and wasn't affected personally, so I can only imagine what it must have been like for you.

Life has been busy and I've been distracted from the questions that originally led me to look into your journal, but I'm still interested. I wonder if we might have a chance to meet in person this fall.

[moonkop.livejournal.com]

I too was a flight attendant, and the thought of death was there. Yet we did not have the fears that exist now. I can fully understand your thinking about the subject of death etc under the circumstances. I guess we all do at times. Hi I am corry one of Van's friends (female)

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

very good post. i think i need to do something similar to what you did with the music, in order to zero in on grief and let it out. ours really isn't a culture that tolerates negative emotions. i was telling ted that just this morning, that italians tend to express themselves, while we tend to hold everything in. it's so destructive.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I can hardly turn a page of Doty's book without thinking of you, Vicki. I would encourage you to give yourself some spaces of open time and a framework (prayer? writing?) in which to process your feelings. In my new fall routine I hope to set aside time for meditation. I also intend to resume work on Pilgrim's Cross. Writing the first draft two Novembers ago was exciting and cathartic, although I set it aside because it was too intense. Now I'm convinced I need to face that intensity, go through it, and not let it deter me from the creative endeavour.

I watched my first Fellini film this afternoon with Danny: Roma. It was interesting witnessing Italian expressiveness from an Italian director's perspective. I need some of that, too.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

yes, i think that's a good idea about a framework in which to process my feelings. i'll give it some consideration in the next few days.

"Roma" is something else. the ecclesiastical fashion show is still shocking, after all these years! i've tried adopting some of the italian temperament, but it doesn't come naturally. :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Opening myself the past year or so to different forms and expressions of love has led me to this place. Thanks for your comment, and welcome.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

A beautiful post. I've never quite understood the idea that if we all tried really hard, we could somehow avoid feeling pain, which you allude to. I don't consider pain inevitable but it is very common, and it can be a very valuable teacher indeed.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

How can we live without pain? Death and loss are an inevitable part of life. Is it possible to learn how to receive this gracefully, without ever knowing pain?

Maybe what you mean is that it's possible to experience happiness most of the time?

The facilitator of my cognitive therapy group quoted a theory that we're not programmed to be happy most of the time, that dissatisfaction was essential to survival when we were competing for life on the primordial plains, that it's bred into us; and that the time people are happiest is when they are eating. This facilitator is one of those unusual creatures who wakes up happy every morning, and is pretty well constantly happy. He can be difficult company. Anyway, his idea makes sense to me from an anthropological standpoint, though it's rather bleak.

[artricia.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I needed that today.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

You are welcome. Anything i can do. :-)

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

I love the photograph of Brenna.

As for the rest of/the point of your entry, I'm not sure I can add anything that hasn't already been said--only a vague sympathy too nebulous for words.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Really I'm not craving sympathy at this point. :-) More than ever, I have a sense of adventure.

The photo of my lovely girl walking down a rutted path through a quiet rural cemetery adds something, I think, to this statement about life.

[rfmcdpei.livejournal.com]

Thank you for mentioning Doty last night. I'll definitely look him up.

As to the instability of these human relations, I hear you, I hear you.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It seems you, too, have made some progress in that arena. I hope that's true.

I recommend Doty's book, although it's certainly not light reading.

And it would be nice to have another opportunity to chat soon.

[bear-left.livejournal.com]

This is extraordinarily powerful, & very helpful as I process where I am emotionally these days: brimming with sadness & anger, and then repressing those, sending my anxiety spiking and my depression spiraling (not out of control but nonetheless no fun at all).

Thanks in particlar for reminding me just how silence equals death.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

You've touched on another important issue for me: I need to be more candid with people as I interact, about what I'm thinking and feeling. I would probably lose my nerve working on the front lines as you do. Becoming more honest with myself and putting it into my creative work is another matter. I am proud of you.

[moonkop.livejournal.com]

Van I only got around to reading your post this morning and I must say I was deeply touched by your honesty and yes your feelings. I do not believe I have yet attained the guts to open up to that extend.... being stiff upperlip has always been my way of dealing with things even as a kid. Heaven forbid if you cried then you were a weakling and a sissy. Thank you for being open and honest.....

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Corry. The stiff upper lip comes most naturally to me, too. I doubt that I'll ever completely unlearn it, but I'm making some progress.