Welcome 2003!
Friday, January 3, 2003 --  1:20pm
Posted by Bar


January 3rd (already), and the weather outside is frightful...

Forrest would love this weather.  All he wanted for Christmas last year was
snow, and of course it snowed this year.  Peter found a snowman in a nearby
town that was so big that he had to take me there to see it last night.
It's bottom snowball measured at least 15 feet in diameter.  Someone
(probably multiple someones) had a fantastic time making him.

So, it's a new year.  We have had a very lazy holiday season - lots of
books, pajamas, sleep and videos.  I have slept nearly 12 hours every day
and each time I wake up from my deep departure, I realize I must be
depressed or I wouldn't be sleeping so much.  I'm not worried about it too
much.  I've finally come to grips with the fact that I have a really good
excuse for being a slug and I might as well take advantage of it.  I find
that when I try to force myself to be productive these days, I quickly get
distracted and then collapse into a time-wasting activity rather than
getting what needs to be done, done.  My challenge is to forgive myself and
try to understand why I'm so off-center.

In fact, Christmas in Philadelphia with our families was great fun.  Peter
and my niece, Catherine, reenacted most of Monty Python and the Holy Grail
verbatim and had the bulk of my family bent over with laughter for much of
Christmas night.  We ate a lot.  We laughed a lot.  And the emphasis on
gifts was in just the right proportion for my taste.

With Peter's family later in the week, we ate some more and spent a quiet
evening talking about the past year.  We were all pretty tired by that time
in the holiday, so we watched football and went to diners for breakfast and
that sort of thing.  By the time Peter and I were headed home, though, the
emotional stuff began to surface.  His sister Mary asked me what I was going
to do when I got home and I answered, "cry".  And then she said, "What are
you going to do after you cry?", and I said, "cry some more" and with that I
lost it right there on her chest, wrapped up like the broken child that I
felt like I was.  I had not been aware of my sadness until that moment.  But
as Peter said, we'd been walking around throughout the holiday enjoying
ourselves but also acutely aware that Forrest was not there and that we were
no longer a threesome.  It's like walking around trying to convince
ourselves and everyone else that everything's ok and that nothing is out of
the ordinary.  It takes an enormous amount of energy.

I realize that it must be impossible for you to understand what this feels
like because you haven't experienced it - or at least most of you have not.
I don't know that I have the ability to describe it too well, but I did have
one realization the other day that might explain one aspect of this state of
being a grieving parent.

When I was trying to figure out for myself why I feel so out of sorts - even
now, a year (almost) since Forrest's death - I asked myself why I wasn't
adjusted to his absence yet.  And the realization was that my life to date
has been deeply affected by my dreams and expectations developed since the
day I was born.  Those dreams are somewhat formed by this culture we live in
and then also by my unique aspirations.  It's fair to say that our culture
puts a lot of emphasis on getting married, having children, getting them
educated, married and with offspring so that extended family is built.  In
my case, I had rebelled against that strategy for living until I was 36 and
met Peter, but still, it was something that I knew I wanted and even needed
when the time was right.  I remember just after Peter and I decided to get
married waking up in the middle of the night in an intense sweat and in
desperate tears at the thought of his death.  In that nightmare, I felt how
important he was to me.  He was the personification of all of my dreams;
everything that I had quietly hoped for and looked for and never allowed my
self to fully accept.  Now, finally, he was here and I loved him enough to
cry from my center about the thought of his death and what that would do to
my dreams and my sense of emotional safety.  What I'm trying to say is that
in the 40 years leading up to Forrest's birth, I was surrounded, like we all
are, with the cultural dream of being a wife and mother.  40 years.  That's
a long time to be headed in one direction.  Now, I'm on the threshold of the
rest of my life - likely another 40 years - and I have NO idea what that
could possibly look like.  I have to invent the whole thing.  I am
completely, and I mean completely, off balance.  I can function.  I can get
through my days.  I can even enjoy them pretty much and I mean that
honestly.  But I have no clue what the rest of my life will look like.  On
harder days, I feel as though all of the good stuff is behind me; on
stronger days I think about all of the good stuff that is yet to come, and
even that thought brings me sadness because I can't imagine it yet, and
because there's a sense of betrayal in imagining it.  Those of you who have
lost someone dear probably know what I'm talking about.  It's natural to the
grieving process to be cautious (or scared) about enjoying life too much.
It's a particularly perplexing part of the progression of grief.

I know that I want to sing.  I know that I love to write.  I have some sense
that I want to teach in some way either through my music or my writing or
simply by living.  I wonder about how I can serve the human population.  I
wonder if there is a way for me to communicate with anyone who will listen
about the value of looking at and dealing with fears that accompany all of
our lives.  I dream about ways to help all of us lessen the intensity of our
collective fear of death - and, our coexisting, perhaps more damaging:  fear
of life.  I long to inspire people to think of themselves primarily as
spiritual beings existing in physical bodies.  Sometimes I want to retreat
to an ashram or a monastery and live without possessions for a time.  Most
of the time I realize that, for me, it is important to find a way to earn a
living while doing the work that I love.

Anyway, to put it mildly, I am in a tizzy (except when I'm not - which is
often enough that I know that I'm not going mad!)  Mostly I'm not in a tizzy
when I'm singing, writing, doing yoga or reading a book.  Often I'm not in a
tizzy when I am talking with someone that I am truly comfortable with - and
that is mostly what we have been doing this holiday season.

Thank you for all of your e-mails, cards and phone calls, and for allowing me to write so
openly about loving Forrest.

I look forward to a remarkable and new kind of new year. I hope that you do too.

Much love to you all,

Bar

Simple Algebra
Sunday, January 5, 2003 --  3:37pm
Posted by Bar


Algebra was not a subject I paid much attention to in high school.  I nearly
flunked my first attempt at it in 11th grade and never tried again.  We had
choir rehearsal right after that dreaded class, so me and my buddy Ray would
sit in the back of the room and practice our music rather than focus on
math.  It seems as though one concept did sink in, however, and it came back
to me with utmost clarity yesterday morning.

I woke up with a jolt. Lying on my belly with my head to one side, I
thought: God is Love.

So, I figured, if God is love, then: Love is God.

It was the greatest algebra I had ever performed! If x=y, then y=x.

If x = God and y = Love, then, God = Love and Love = God. It's as simple as
that.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I am able to think that concept
through - that Love is God - it makes my whole body buzz....say that a
hundred times through fast...

Food for thought....

Love (or is it God?) to you,

bar