A Pile of Clean Blankets in Everyday Ramblings

One of the mystery tulips in my plot yesterday morning. I am so glad I planted them as although they are a little wonky and late, they are gorgeous.

After all the meetings this last week we completed one major stressful project that has been hanging over our heads for months. This is a very good thing. I still have another stressful project that needs to be done in 16 days. Not that I am counting.

Then there is one big meeting in May and then there are weeks where I can take it kind of sort of easy. That is when I am supposed to be working on the poetry manuscript. Eek.

Mr. Pedantic, (yes… him) offered to give me a ride home Thursday. My place is on the way to his and he had offered two weeks ago, and I had declined. It was a beautiful day, and Mr. Pedantic owns a Tesla. That day, the day I declined, the bus ride home was like something that was a mix between a Fellini movie (Mr. Pedantic would say film) and the Zombie Apocalypse. So, this week in spite of my misgivings about the Tesla I accepted the offer.

He is a retired therapist. (Of course he is.) I wanted to ask him about his take on if grief shows up in recognizable patterns in body language. I am choosing supporting grief in the body as the focus of my classes this next week as there are a number of folks navigating their way through various forms of it, not to mention our collective grief at what is happening while the structures that hold our country together are being dismantled.

As he is a musician in a small group that plays a kind of country infused folk, he was encouraging me to come to a gig he was playing locally last night. Getting me out at night is quite the challenge these days. But it got me thinking about the book project. I will be expected to do readings around town at various venues. And the majority of them will be at night! Double eek. I am okay with the reading part. I will be nervous but that is natural, it is the up past my bedtime element I will need to train for.

Serious, First World problem. Not that we are First World anymore. In the space of three months our status has dropped. Autocracies are the poorest countries in the world. Yeah, some people in those countries, a select corrupt few, are absurdly rich but…

Mr. Pedantic has a black sticker on the back of his snow-white Tesla that announces he bought it before Elon went crazy. What a world we live in!

He was surprised when I told him that my job as a yoga/movement teacher was to support people in their grief wherever they are. Literally. I had a student once back in the day when I was teaching in person who had just lost her adult son to cancer. I encouraged her gently onto the floor in almost a fetal position with a bunch of blankets to support her. And she talked a bit and was quiet a bit. That was the practice. It was heart wrenching for me, and I can only imagine what it was like for her.

What I am hearing from those that are trained in this, is that we need time. Even, if possible, every day, a little time to abide with the sorrow and pain. Maybe a small ritual to be present with ourselves and our new constant companion, this grief. Many of us tend to avoid it… or conversely, become too attached to it.

That is a tendency I have. And I have had plenty of opportunities to become attached to grief. That I identified on some level as my grief, as if I had merged with it as opposed to walking alongside it.

As a therapist Mr. Pedantic knows about the attachment part. I used to think I knew so much about grief but these days I am wondering if I know anything at all. That is why I asked him, why I am exploring these teachings and wondering if maybe the best possible thing I can do is try to be present for myself and others and organize a big metaphorical pile of clean blankets for us all.

In the meantime, best wishes for a lovely Easter however it manifests for you.