Light Returning
“Are you working on something creative now?” the psychic asked me.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Good. Many people don’t live out their creativity; you are. You have good focus but also some residual persecution issues, and so you may have some trouble with follow-through,” she said. She wasn’t telling me anything new.
“It’s very important that you get your work out there now in order for it to grow in you. You must be persistent,” she continued. I guess I would have to stop waiting to be discovered at the local café or through my words in the Museletter. Maybe I should learn more about marketing and publishing. Maybe I should risk the dreaded rejection slip.
The closer I get to the end of these stories the more nervous I get about what to do next, because I realize that writing has been a way to keep myself busy, so as not to sink deeper into my grief. Ironically, it has been a way to avoid overwhelming grief while processing it. Is that what art does?
My plan has been to stop writing by the Winter Solstice, a time when the light returns as the days grow longer. Could lightness return to me? Could I grow more whole as the days grow longer? Could I begin to expand out, rather than withdraw in? Are there cycles to grief like the moon has cycles?
The stories are catching up to the present, are more about me now than Jim and Dan. Maybe their completion should be a trip back home. I was beginning to have a strong urge to see the Boston Commons lit up for Christmas and to hug every member of my family again.
Post notes: The above is an excerpt from my book The Jim and Dan Stories, which was written in 2001 (the year I lost my brothers Jim and Dan). The book weaves together a recounting of the last few weeks of my brother’s lives with humorous re-tellings of growing up in an Irish Catholic family of 9 siblings during the 50s and 60s and a chronicle of the first six months of the grief process. The photo is from last night’s Solstice candle lighting at Anahata.
December 22nd, 2013 2:21 pm
This is such a profound and wonderful post, Colleen…..It was great for me to read this right at this time. The ‘griefs’ begin to pile up, and just when you think you are getting through it all—-a new loss happens.
I was told by a psychic waaaaay back in the 1970’s that my creativity was essential to my well being and to my life! He said, “Your creativity is what will save you, Always! Never stop creating—it will give you your life”
He was right, and so are you, my dear Colleen.
December 22nd, 2013 5:02 pm
I felt a little strange reading this until you explained it was from an older time. That made me sigh, because you are creatively different today.
December 22nd, 2013 5:06 pm
I did not know about your loss. I hope that your creaitive juices pull you through your grief. I found that putting together an album of my husband and his ancestors helped take the sting from losing him. I may be not the norm, but times like Christmas, the anniversary of his death can still produce a punch even now. (He died in 2006.) I did find that some friends can’t stand someone hurting, so they want to hurry the process. I had to accept that. But others are always there for me.
December 23rd, 2013 7:18 am
I also didn’t realize when I began reading that this was an older writing.
It contains has deep-seated feelings of the past and the present; feelings I share.
And yes, yes, yes, to what the psychic said.
And yes, yes, yes to your question, “Is that what art does?”