reconciliations

in

As I've been transitioning from two chunks of work down to one each day – summer break early, given the swirling circumstances – the toughest part is reconciling two realities: One, that by working less, I'm letting the creative part of me drift away, just a bit more than normal, the majority of the day being dedicated to non-creative (though, in some cases, not unenjoyable) pursuits and responsibilities. The second is that by working less and letting that part of my identity slip, I accomplish more in the few hours in which I allow myself to indulge the creative side before the day's run: it wasn't until I went to my summer schedule (which will, most likely, be permanent) that I found my footing with the Fictions (the former Project500, keep it simple and all) and blasted through the first one. The second chunk of work an (oft-failed) effort to assert an identity that didn't need assertion to begin with? Or, perhaps, I need the other stuff to help fill the well more than I had previously thought. Whatever it is, I'll take it – but that doesn't make it an easy reconciliation. An essential one, yes, but not an easy one; recording this as a note of the benefit of present effort.

erasure loops

in

An understanding that the frustration I've felt as I stare down yet another trip into legal erasure of a person (tangentially this time) – perhaps worth noting that, both times, I've been reading Proust – isn't over the death: think I said yesterday that, while I obviously feel bad for my wife and her family, my mother-in-law's death really doesn't impact me emotionally: I liked her, and, for the most part, lucked out in the mother-in-law department, but she hadn't been well for a long time and her relatively quick passing (at home) was a gift for her. What's bothering me is that my grandfather's estate issues and such are still going on – nothing bad, just a lot to dismantle – and, now that I'm dealing with (though not with the same level of involvement) another one, I feel like I'm back at the beginning of the process with my grandfather – down to the nursing home my father-in-law will be going into. It's an utterly exhausting loop, but one that begs the question: in these morning hours spent toiling in The Paintshop, writing things that no one reads only for my own belief that, in order to communicate to a nebulous someone, they need to exist, am I being myself for the only time during the day, or am I visiting the mausoleum of a previous iteration of myself, as others visit a grave?

meetings and visitations

in

Two more of the standard meetings and visitations in the interregnum between death and funeral today though this is my first in a long time when one spouse survives still; I'm used to dealing with total erasure, step by step, bit by bit. Will sit and be silent and offer support when needed; for some reason or other I've come to view these meetings and visitations as an integral part of the grieving process (though, in this case, I don’t consider myself to be grieving for the deceased but for the grief my wife is feeling) – probably because I've handled them myself for so long and prefer to do than feel; in this case, I do the lawn and write the obit.

shake

in

Fascinating recognition, thanks to a much-needed convo with a great friend: that part of my present creative problem is that, while I want and need to move on to different moods and forms, the inputs – life swirling, doing its thing –, the toxic waters that are gurgling into my well, are holding me in the same soul-sucking patterns of the last 14 years. Shaking things up is the only way out / through – trick being to figure out what, exactly, to shake: while I’d rather pursue requisite shaking with surgical precision for now, I do accept that “scorched earth everything” might become unavoidable.