GRIEF & BEAUTY & SUPER POWERS
This past weekend I performed a wedding for a wonderful, fun couple that chose for one of their readings a bit by comedian Mike Birbiglia. In the piece, MB talks about how falling in love is inspired by seeing others’ special skills and super powers and having them recognise ours. I love the notion of super powers, and I’m especially fond of kooky super powers I discover in my friends.
I, too, have a sort of odd super power. I can’t even pinpoint when I became fully aware of it. I don’t recall a single epiphanic moment. I think discovering it and learning to harness it has been a long, organic process. Whatever the case, my curious special skill is this: I am excellent at making room for other people’s grief.
I do think the root of my talent dates way back to my own early grief, which began before I could speak. It would be decades before I could look back and see the grief, and name it, and try to sort it out. But from the very start of my life, there was grief. Somedays, when I remember to get out my poet’s license, I wonder if this was my fate, having a mother whose first name literally translates to sorrows. Technically speaking then, I was born of sorrow.
Metaphoric contemplation of birth aside, the reality is that my day-to-day life has been full of grief. So has yours. It’s part of the human condition. Like Buddha said, “Life is suffering.” But life is also joy. The older I get, the more fascinated I am to see and feel that I can be both suffering and happy in the same moment. Like my heart has been rendered by Picasso, and one side is all puffy and gravity-defying whilst the other side sags under the weight of unavoidable circumstances.
A couple of illustrations to this point. The first is the picture above. That’s me at Beachy Head in England. I have traveled all around the world and I mean it when I say Beachy Head is one of the most breathtaking places on the planet. Breathtaking in the good sense of the word, like you suck in your breath at the gorgeousness. But ironically, it is also one of the most breathtaking places in that it is one of the top three spots in the world people go to jump to their deaths. Breathtaking-- no more breaths. When I visited Beachy Head with my son, we were overwhelmed by the view and also by the number of deeply sad memorials. One moment I looked up to see a curious juxtaposition: an ice cream truck right beside a phone booth plastered with suicide hotline information.
My second illustration is this month of January 2016. I’m usually pretty happy in January. The holidays are over. My birthday is the 10th and because I love my birthday it is practically foolproof for me: I always love it. But this year, curiously, I had a super super shitty birthday. I spent the day crying and stressing out. January has been full of death and loss for me. So I did what I needed to do to cope: I ramped up my meditation and I sought the counsel of wise friends and I asked everyone for help getting and staying in the moment. This worked to a certain extent. My heart remains heavy as it tries to absorb all the loss but at the same time I feel solid in the here and now.
Getting back to grief. One place I hone my grief super powers is in the memoir workshops I’ve been leading for seven or so years now. People come and share their biggest stories. Not surprisingly, many of our hugest personal stories involve grief. So often people write about what they are going through, what they are trying to get through. In my experience-- both leading the workshop and also calling on friends to help me during my hardest times-- being listened to is a huge part of alleviating suffering. I am so grateful when I am heard. I am so honored when I get to listen.
From the minute the idea of this ranch came across the radar, I knew that I wanted to use it as a place to promote healing. I have had the benefit of being able to attend retreats where I could sit quietly and focus on pain and wrestle with it and make peace with it and then carefully put it up on a shelf where I could still see it and remember it and learn from it but not have it close enough to tumble on top of me and hurt me some more. I wanted to make sure that I used this incredible gift of space I’ve been given to offer other people the same opportunities.
So it doesn’t seem at all odd to me that this place, which will be the location of many joyful weddings, will also be a place for people to bring their sorrows. Both can exist in one place.
One of the biggest goals I have for the ranch is to make a space for bereft parents to meet and share their stories of grief and healing. I have so many friends whose kids died young. There is zero debate about it: this is the worst grief in the world. I am going to host a series of dinners for these parents beginning in early February. If you have lost a child or know someone who has and would like to join us, please email me for details. [email protected]