Era of Death
An epic experiment in forever.
I think about Medieval times and meditate on plagues. You do, too, in your own way. Articles in all the major outlets not so subtly illude to the associations between more mortal times and our own.
“Our own” - what do I mean by that? What I am thinking on is how modernity constructs so many boundaries between life and the means to make and sustain it. This is not some “noble savage” hideous romanticizing of earlier times. I, very ardently, desire no other time than now. I like my iPhone and treasure the appendectomy that saved my life (as well as the super rad scar!). Not churning butter nor darning socks serves me. I am able to therefore be available to more persons and engage in more undertakings than in previous times.
That all so honestly said, regardless of the tools we less hairy apes take on, the parameters of life remain as they are. Embryos wretch from wombs, bloody and busting from aqua into oxygen, disease and germs remain steady in their agenda. Morality and ethics have no place in that. Life is less a “why” as it is an “is”. You can say that is sad, but existence ain’t asking.
What is magnificent, curious, and captivating to me is that the rituals that coddle and aide the moving through of the living in times of death are seemingly no more. We could say ‘on hold’ but hold encourages a linear ending. Investing in that, for me at least, has been and is both silly and heart wrenching. That is not a COVID exclusive experience. When I was starting my business, in the depths of recovery, repairing my body and life after my assault, navigating life after a sustainable intimate injury, beginning partnership co-habitation, rearing my dog, starting Graduate School, committing to my novel, coping with my diagnosis, and all the other ugly and elegant aspects of evolution remaining where shit is at has helped me best.
From that headspace comes death in abstraction. In other times we board planes and buy flowers, pull on suits, good shoes, hug, and gather. Religion can arise as well, enemy, old friend all the same. He rears his mane in the end as absent as his reign may be in less terminal times. This week, there is only a text message. Lost in my partner’s news about groceries and the digestive activities of our animals.
“What was that?”
In a client meeting, my phone hits vibrate. Mom. She mostly shares news about various trips to Harris Teeter, our shared true crimes affection, comparing of puppy notes and pics, beauty wins, and ad hoc book reviews (I ship her a box monthly and she kindly accepts, reads, and sends phone-typed, uber cute reviews). I think, ‘I’ll get to her later’ and so I did. The feeling once I read her words came much changed.
The communication was one that so many, too many, of you are receiving. A beloved is in the throes of the end. In the fist of a virus that has so ended the beating heart of too many humans, businesses, livelihoods, and esteems. Many months and deep in maintaining, it is not that we (I, for instance) became cavalier, we surely tried not to, or assumed some kind of lazy NIMBY headspace, but sure – what sin is there in comfort?
None. Many. But that is not the point. Illness has no morality. Sure, you can court disaster and ignore science, but even those that do are not therefore prescribed. Ill is ill is ill and death is no time to prescribe justice.
What it is, though, is an opportunity to think of death as a linear experience – for sure – but also as a dodecahedron events, massive, mini, and overarching. Endings are terrible but not, even those of life (#physics), an A-to-B experience. We die and observe death, endings and change and evolutions and ways of continuing never expected innumerable times a moment. Is that your loss of a contact lens, job, closing of a store, change in an industry that seemingly leaves you without and empty? Don’t even get me started on relationships – here she goes! – it come up here, too. Sure, a breakup of unhealable friendship riffs, family partings (many of those up in here of late!), but in the closing of conversations and endings of topics even.
Example: My partner and I have a shitty going-to-work routine. Nearly ten years into cohabitation, we fail daily.
The last few moments before I need to leave the house are anxiety pinnacle for me - everyday, each time, for always. When anxious, my behavior is pretty reliable, same routine every time. Nicely trackable labyrinth of a freak-out. This is how it goes: I rush. Like hyper speed rush – light speed shit. Rush around, check in the mirror to cajole appearance pathologies most beloved in times of panic, check and recheck the contents of my bag and lunch, set and reset my earbuds, triple check Benedict’s harness, and my keys. I am known to lock and relock the door. If spoken to, I can bark or straight out ignore the voice, person, and ask.
So here comes my beau, aching for nothing more than to say, “I love you” and “I’ll miss you”, or maybe “be safe” and maybe even hear the same. The Bastard might even want a kiss. It is painful, and perhaps some of you might relate, to break from the cage of chaos. It is like reverse birth. Stuffing of the bairn back into its cave. “Unnatural”, my aura screams.
Here we are presented with, possible, dual deaths: One of my presence in the otherwise calmly blissful morning vibe of my marriage, and the other could be the pattern of a well-rode habit of anxiety practice. Oh, look at that! We could think too of Robert, my hubby and hereby Tracy’s emotional victim. He could try approaches like giving me space or calling me out or walking away or who knows?
One more thought brings up a firing or job loss. Can you relate? Not good. Very terrible, but perhaps a part of a story with some wins in store. This is not a ‘buck up’ but a challenge to maybe in this time do a thing you really want to. It may be ‘wrong’ but if there is not so binary an end game as well and ill, but a through line of your journey and that alone is a very awesome thing to honor, and trust.
Endings, in this very small microcosm of my morning, might very well be beginnings – challenging ones I am actively resisting every day. As tempting as it is to make ends and death ‘bad news” and starting’s as ‘well’, I propose they are multicolored. No, the ending of any life is not “good”, but there is good that could lie behind a loss – be it wisdom, a family coming together in a new way, a commitment and practice to new, more compassionate action – may be long to arrive but a very valid portion of the experience.
What is known and not arguable – try me! - is that both are necessary. OK, you can descent, but existence did not ask you did it? Surely, I was not sought for my vote. No, I was only delivered knowledge of ones far away concluding their time in this terraform. From there I have feels and a BIG question of: What to do with any of this. There is no to-do to take on, is there? Express perhaps and so I have and encourage – you know how to find me.
Xo
Tracy
