Wicked Rural Homestead
Live Simply
The Pivot and the Pirouette
As the years go on it is hard to articulate the way my grief has changed. When I compare my feelings to the words of others, nothing fits. It seems apt for this time of year that those words feel like tight pants after holiday meals. The holidays in general are a slippery slope for those remembering loved ones gone on. Now, with Grandma’s death-a-versery the a little before Thanksgiving and Dad having died on Black Friday, that time of year is as much celebration as reminder that our harvest table has empty chairs around the feast. I can say that overall, I am happy. I don’t live in the empty spaces left by their passing.Visits to and from the land of grief are frequent, but less often unbidden. Some days tears come with the dawn and others I can’t find them; even when I’m looking for something else and find dad and Sara’s now defunct stockings, left in the Christmas bin with the other unused items for the year. I have learned to accept both without any hesitation or judgment for how I should or should not feel. If shared with anyone out loud that moment of the found stockings would bring a flood of tears but, alone with them in the basement it was ok.
Sad, but ok.
I have no idea if our loved ones are still watching over us, or waiting for our company, but I do think that stagnation or purgatory on either side of the vail to be an unhappy thought. I feel that those who have gone on to what’s next should be free to embrace that transition and those of us left earth side should be able to continue living without constant lamentation of future plans that, as it turns out, were never in the cards to begin with.
When I conceptualize my own experience I try to stay away from sentiments of moving ‘past’, ‘on’ or ‘through’ but rather it feels more suitable to talk of loss as a pivot. An absolute point where the change is so abrupt and profound that the direction I thought my life was headed isn’t even visible anymore. The trick is not to pivot so much it becomes an unending pirouette, a mental state constantly revolving and turning, till everything is a blur. I have seen how easy it is to place all my weight upon that pinpoint of space that allows everything to orbit my grief. How simple it is to balance on the fulcrum of the spin and let every new event maintain the twirl, sometimes the disorientation is a welcome relief from the daily reality of loss. It can be hard to leave that place of change behind. I don’t want it to become my identity, a person defined by my losses even years in the future.
I don’t mean this to come off as advice, or judgment of others, but rather reflection and recording how my grief is precious to me just like finding those stockings. These moments are shared with you and the universe. I can be in love with living, while holding empty spaces for people I long for. I can enjoy new experiences and make room for continued rituals that honor my pain and bring their memory along in this new direction neither of us thought we would ever head. I can have days where the pain is a distant memory and follow them up with debilitating bouts of sorrow. All I know for sure is that I will not waste its finite gift of life in denial, depression or delusion for what I hoped for, but did not receive.
I have been the beneficiary of many wise words over the years, one of the most salient and recurring concepts is that energy moves in spirals. The directional force supplied by the pivot is not two dimensional, possibly it also transcends the third dimension. Spinning out not just up down and out, but through time as well. The power of the spiral and its abundant occurrence and use in creation is profound when I think about the dizzying effects of grief’s pirouette. This disorientation can make me want to stop the motion completely, but any dancer knows that it’s about finding a constant point and revisiting it as often as possible during the rotation (a technique called “spotting”) that staves off the tumult.
Nature is, and has always been, that reference in my life. I make sure to incorporate as much of the wild earth into my day as I can. For me this has manifested as a home in the woods, filled with a varied menagerie of critters and living as close to the dirt as possible. It is in these daily gurus that I can focus, as the world and my life spin, a daily practice of caring for others and setting systems in place that nourish one another. Death is bound to life and the more touch points I have, the less disorienting the concept.
The way we have chosen to live often carries me from past, to present, and right on to the future, in one smooth movement. Carving our gigantic holiday chicken, brings memories of fall feedings and reminds me to order chicks for next September. Maple syrup from two years ago sweetens festive libations, recalls snow crunching underfoot collecting buckets from the trees that ring the house. Our kids all prioritize the cuddling of canines and kitties as the fire warms our hearth from wood they split themselves and dutifully carried inside. All of these things are grounding in a way the other forces of life can’t be. I hope most of all, that we are passing on these practices, priorities and procedures to our children so that they will have anchoring aspects in their life to weather the storm when life is set spinning, as it inevitably will. This ability to spot as dancers do, is learned. A way to rewire the brain by constant training and practice of what to focus on when looking forward means everything is blurred.
The trite but true saying that; “a smooth sea, never made a skilled sailor” (-FDR) feels apt in this regard. All the same, grief is not an ocean I want to live on. I can hope that we have prepaid our debt for a time over the last decade. At least in terms of the sudden death of close family members, as frankly, there aren’t that many left.
This land and little homestead have given me so much solace to deal with the sadness these short, dark, holy days of the year invoke in me. We live on a constantly spinning orb. The natural movement of energy often spirals out, in, or out of control maintaining balance in these circumstances is a tricky thing indeed. Life is a messy business, but given the alternative, I’m grateful I get to keep spinning.
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Wicked Rural Homestead 
Your father was the finest man I ever knew.
I was lucky to know him a long time, that turned out to be too short.
I miss him monumentally and constantly.
Sending you much love from the snowy mountains of New Mexico.
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