In Norse mythology, the whole Universe is a tree: Yggdrasill. It joins and shelters all worlds, and her messenger -- the go-between of gods and demons, giants and men -- is a mean little squirrel.
The Yggdrasil suffers. But it is the timeless Guardian Tree, and it never dies.
Of course, that's just one of myriad tree myths. They're an easy hanger for belief, trees. Targets for cliche and epicly bad poetry, but justifiably so. Few people live to see the birth and death of a great tree. They're very easy to take for granted.
When we moved to Florida, I was eight. Our house was brand new, built on a dirt lot full of weeds and not much else. We came in at night with blackened feet, and knees and necks, pulled sand spur spikes out of our fingers and toes. For my father, this was a blank canvass. And within months there was jasmine and scheflera, baby palms and citrus saplings and who-knows-what. Over the years, he's experimented with all sorts of plants: roses, pumpkins, tomatoes, ficus, butterfly bushes. It's a jungle, now. The configurations change, but always it is green and lush. My dad can make anything grow.
Well, anything that doesn't require sun. See, there was something else on that dirt lot: a massive live oak. It was two trees, practically. So enormous that even though it sat on our property line, bisected by a wooden fence, there was enough for two families. And we did all of the family things you do with a great tree. We tied ropes with tires and hammocks to it. We carved at it and cursed the layers of leaves it dropped year-round. This tree raised thousands, perhaps millions of angry squirrel babies, all chattering proprietarily from its heavy limbs. I imagined that this tree had shielded Seminoles and dinosaurs.
Today is the first day, perhaps since the beginning of the world, that there is no tree. There is no tree because time and disease and chainsaws can dismantle any Universe. Let it be a lesson to you, says the tree -- because I am always surprised by this lesson -- that all things go.
March 8, 2011
November 6, 2010
Fear
Ok, so I'd love to say that my many-month absence has been tied into my inability to change the language settings on my Gmail account. I'd love to say that it's because I've been traveling. Or because I've found a new job.
All of these things are true. But they're not correct.
There's no good reason for me to neglect this space except one: I didn't know where to go. What on earth do you say while you grieve? "Hello, everyone... here's a post about how I'm still grieving..."
No. And I also felt the need not to write anything silly. Like how I don't really know what "business smart" means, as a dress code. How the centrifuge at the laundromat shredded my only appropriate pair of pants...
But tonight, I think I've isolated something that is both past and future. In as much as I want to think about either of those things.
I've been reading Nicola Griffith, lately. The most recent of her Aud Torvingen series. Let's nevermind the fact that I think of Aud as--that, in fact, she is-- a superhero. Let's not discuss how passionately I want her to simply occupy my couch; to feel her spring-coiled power, to look at the gorgeous expanse of her legs in my living room. No, that's all just good writing.
What I'm interested in is how deftly this novel explores the concept of fear. Fear in every tense.
My girlfriend and I don't, generally, discuss certain feelings. We don't much "process." We don't really know how to, not with each other. It's a strange state, actually. One that forces me to be far less verbal, and entirely more present. It's important that she gets my message right from the beginning; it's vital that I understand hers.
But tonight, somehow fear came out. The way we anticipate it, the way we hurt over what is simply a message. The way we worry it into a great monster. And my girlfriend--my weathervane and my lee--named her fear for me.
It's so simple in its brutality. I can comfort, I can soothe. I can open myself up and say, "Here I am. I'm just like you." But I cannot protect. It is not only me who has lost. Who is grieving. And who, again, will lose.
There is always a monster bigger than you.
All of these things are true. But they're not correct.
There's no good reason for me to neglect this space except one: I didn't know where to go. What on earth do you say while you grieve? "Hello, everyone... here's a post about how I'm still grieving..."
No. And I also felt the need not to write anything silly. Like how I don't really know what "business smart" means, as a dress code. How the centrifuge at the laundromat shredded my only appropriate pair of pants...
But tonight, I think I've isolated something that is both past and future. In as much as I want to think about either of those things.
I've been reading Nicola Griffith, lately. The most recent of her Aud Torvingen series. Let's nevermind the fact that I think of Aud as--that, in fact, she is-- a superhero. Let's not discuss how passionately I want her to simply occupy my couch; to feel her spring-coiled power, to look at the gorgeous expanse of her legs in my living room. No, that's all just good writing.
What I'm interested in is how deftly this novel explores the concept of fear. Fear in every tense.
My girlfriend and I don't, generally, discuss certain feelings. We don't much "process." We don't really know how to, not with each other. It's a strange state, actually. One that forces me to be far less verbal, and entirely more present. It's important that she gets my message right from the beginning; it's vital that I understand hers.
But tonight, somehow fear came out. The way we anticipate it, the way we hurt over what is simply a message. The way we worry it into a great monster. And my girlfriend--my weathervane and my lee--named her fear for me.
It's so simple in its brutality. I can comfort, I can soothe. I can open myself up and say, "Here I am. I'm just like you." But I cannot protect. It is not only me who has lost. Who is grieving. And who, again, will lose.
There is always a monster bigger than you.
May 22, 2010
What I Meant
Well, I haven't posted much. Clearly. Of course, those of you who know me probably don't expect much, anyway. And I guess I appreciate that.
The truth is, I have written. I've written three or four different posts. Most deleted because they're, really, not what I want to say. Always, there is the line from Prufrock: That's not what I meant, at all.
But writing goes the way of living; very often, what comes out is a great surprise. I sit down to do one thing, and, somehow, I create another. So, to circumvent any need for poetry, I will make a list (my writer-friend Jill has illustrated the succinct power of the list) of all that is with me.
1. I miss my brother.
2. I am giving myself license. To miss him and to be self-destructive.
3. Self-destruction is less dramatic, as I get older.
4. I need. I have an intense need--the kind which is there in all of us, all the time.
5. Loss makes this need a sad hunger. Insatiable.
6. History has taught me: this will become a longing. And then a simple hurt. And then a fact.
7. The fact is that I could not save him. I could not, maybe, ever have saved him.
Also, there is this: I'm back in Copenhagen, with what was waiting for me. Regular life. Normal life. Easy to be here, without him. It's a guilty ease. But also, I am immobilized. And I'm not particularly self-motivated, as a rule.
So, again, this is not what I want to say. Or even what I meant. What I meant is his smile and hopeful voice: Hey, big sister... It is a person, flesh and bone. Living, hands and blood.
But I do understand, now, that words are the only thing I can do. And I understand, now, that these symbols are an adequate illustration for loss. Because they are essentially a removal. Sorry little place keepers for the thing itself.
The truth is, I have written. I've written three or four different posts. Most deleted because they're, really, not what I want to say. Always, there is the line from Prufrock: That's not what I meant, at all.
But writing goes the way of living; very often, what comes out is a great surprise. I sit down to do one thing, and, somehow, I create another. So, to circumvent any need for poetry, I will make a list (my writer-friend Jill has illustrated the succinct power of the list) of all that is with me.
1. I miss my brother.
2. I am giving myself license. To miss him and to be self-destructive.
3. Self-destruction is less dramatic, as I get older.
4. I need. I have an intense need--the kind which is there in all of us, all the time.
5. Loss makes this need a sad hunger. Insatiable.
6. History has taught me: this will become a longing. And then a simple hurt. And then a fact.
7. The fact is that I could not save him. I could not, maybe, ever have saved him.
Also, there is this: I'm back in Copenhagen, with what was waiting for me. Regular life. Normal life. Easy to be here, without him. It's a guilty ease. But also, I am immobilized. And I'm not particularly self-motivated, as a rule.
So, again, this is not what I want to say. Or even what I meant. What I meant is his smile and hopeful voice: Hey, big sister... It is a person, flesh and bone. Living, hands and blood.
But I do understand, now, that words are the only thing I can do. And I understand, now, that these symbols are an adequate illustration for loss. Because they are essentially a removal. Sorry little place keepers for the thing itself.
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