Grief Is Coming Down On My Head
This past week’s bike accident, recognizing many ways to heal and opening myself back up to grief.
“Take a day to heal from the lies you’ve told yourself and the ones that have been told to you.” — Maya Angelou
I’m taking three.
This is thanks to the bicycle accident I got myself into on Tuesday riding home from work. My face smacked a concrete wall so hard I experienced the bounce back in slo mo before the gravel ate my knees.
I was lucky, some stitches and bruising and your girl is in pain but she also has this magnificent, blooming deep purple and magenta black eye. I discovered today that most people find it a bit gruesome judging by the looks of strangers as I hobbled to the bodega but —
“You like it,” The Jazz said to me when I flexed in the mirror.
I do! It’s tuff and beautiful.
“You shoulda seen the other guy,” I said, even though the other guy rode off unscathed.
I’ll give the irresponsible rider half a point for stopping and lingering until I waved him off. He didn’t protest.
On the other hand, peace to the woman who sat with me waiting for the ambulance to come. To so many good concerned citizens who paused to check in, whom she shooed away, allowing me to bleed within the boundaries of my own aura. To the EMTs cleaning my wounds. To the kind eyed doctor who reminded us of my bestie, to his careful hands making leather of my cheek as he pulled the needle through and back.
“No one thinks Caits got in a fight,” The Jazz laughs and alas. The world knows. I am goofball to my core. Though I have hurt a fly, just not with my fists.
Now the sound when I walk is a song that goes ow ow ow ow ow.
Probably some kinda karma.
There are so many ways to help yourself heal, to help others heal.
Before the bike accident happened, Monday early morning, coffee in hand, walking our park’s big garden, my friend began crying when he recounted the story of his vocal coach recently instructing him to sit very straight in the chair, feet nailed to ground, and say, I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL SINGING VOICE.
Later that day, a voice memo. My girl said what if I’m repeating old patterns? Good question, I said, but what if what you need right now is healing from someone who is honest about their limits but treats you like a fucking goddess, even if it’s temporary?
Does healing always happen alone? We know better than that!
I called him her astrological atomic shea butter lover, which made her laugh aloud, which might have been the biggest gift of the whole exchange.
I send her an image. It’s a black and white xeroxed photography of a girl’s hands cupped, the linoleum floor visible beneath — the shot is taken from above. In sort of beautifully rough sharpie lettering that looks like flames dancing, she wrote:
The idea of having myself always.
Good lord. The girl was in my class, and though she rarely came — high school senoritis as it is, and the last period poetry class feeling like a scam — well, you see. She was full of gems.
Everything Everywhere All At Once, Alejandro was right, I loved it. If you’ve seen it, let’s talk about how amazingly wacky and unexpected it is! Surprise after surprise.
The film made me wonder about all my possible alternative timelines in life, about the ripple effect of choices, of the consequences of romanticizing another existence, of wanting to possess the ability to leap universes, or pause the story I’m in to step out the experience another role, then drop back into the life I am currently creating, intentionally or not, with more purpose.
It also really made me miss being a daughter, as fraught and complex as that role is.
These lines of thought brought me to one of my many projects that I haven’t abandoned, but haven’t given attention to in some time. I can get embarrassed about my lack of discipline, but I do understand the fine balance between recovery periods, instinct and intuition, and ripe ol’ excuses.
Which is to say I am going very easy with my “audiozine.”
I occasionally feel a flash of small anxiety, as if anyone is waiting with bated breath for the next episode. I am going against every coach’s advice ever for keeping an audience engaged except for my therapist who says, GOOD! Do what you want!
I suppose the question is intent. Am I trying to “keep an audience engaged”? I don’t think that’s why I decided to try my hand at this medium. I started it for myself and the conversations that have been boiling inside me.
Let me put it this way: the last few weeks I found myself in the way of three potent grief conversations.
At a lunch with a grants program officer / burgeoning friend, I learned about her father who passed a year ago. Is it normal that I am still so upset? She asked. The answer is always yes.
Over lunch with a new colleague in DC, she asked me about my tattoo. When I told her we think of mom as a monarch, she showed me the delicate butterfly on her foot and through eyes washed in unspent tears said, this is for my brother.
In the chair where I’ve gotten my hair cut for years now, my friend and stylist shared that her father recently passed. Our parents been diagnosed with the same form of cancer at the same time — though my mom was stage 4, and her dad was stage 3. Every few months, in the chair, there were our brutally honest check ins. The frankness with which we are able to speak in the language of illness and death, was, is, well, I hope as healing for her as for me.
The message is coming down on my head: it’s time.
And so.
What’s coming on the podcast is deep dive conversations into grief. I now understand that I can’t rush them. They will come when it’s time and the result will be beautiful, I hope. Like a little unexpected present when they find their way into the world soon enough.
And who needs them will find them, I have to believe.
At night The Jazz rubs lavender between his palms and comes to find me, cupping my face. I breathe in deep.
I haven’t enjoyed being a student in so very long. SO LONG! Grad school disappointed, largely. But I am craving being a student again. To receive.
How can my classroom be the world? A question I am asking myself again.
