Welcoming All Guests
When grief is in the house
The French call the orgasm la petite mort, the little death. There is another little death, an orgasm of sorts, that is similarly defined as a brief loss or weakening of consciousness.
I’m talking about grief.
My covid experience began over Christmas, which I wrote about two letters ago, but it began in earnest when I spent the past week on the couch overcome by alternating waves of exhaustion and self-pity. I tried to power through it. “Everyone has Covid right now,” I told myself, “and considering what others have gone through, this isn’t that bad.” I went down a list of everything I was thankful for – a warm house, a dog curled around my feet, ginger tea. My gratitudes gave me a brief reprieve but did nothing to fend off my fatigue nor did it mitigate the accompanying depression.
“There is definitely an emotional component of this virus,” I told my friend Ceci when we spoke on the phone. “Covid is a bespoke experience,” she said. “It gives us each a different lesson.” For her, Covid came on early in the pandemic. “I felt like I was crossing over, talking to spirits on the other side,” she told me. What’s my lesson here? I wondered. My body was clearly trying to tell me something but I was working so hard to stay positive I may have missed the message.
Finally, mid-week, I gave up trying to make meaning or find pleasure in the experience. I lay in bed and watched the sky soften into night. I asked for things to be brought to me. It felt like surrender but a friend questioned the concept of surrender. This is not war, he wrote. It is co-existence. I let go of surrender and allowed myself to go where my body wanted to take me, which led me to a cathartic cry.
I did manage to rouse myself for one meeting, a zoom call for my daughter’s high school. We convened to see how the teachers were doing after another disruptive month. “I am completely demoralized,” a beloved faculty member said. He was on the verge of tears. “It is insane what we are trying to do, taking enormous risks to be here and people are saying we don’t want to teach when nothing could be farther from the truth.” He cleared his throat and apologized for his emotions. In another world, the one where our bodies are not overly controlled by our dignity, we would have unmuted and screamed and cried with him. Instead, we spent the rest of the meeting brainstorming ways to support faculty. Notes from students? Pizzas for lunch? Gift cards from the PA?
“Yes to all that,” one parent said. “But what we really need is a grief ritual. Grieving can help us see the truth of our situation so we can respond differently.”
“It is so important to have ways to release those pains to keep clearing ourselves,” writes Sobonfu E. Some who is one of the foremost voices in African spirituality. Over the past few decades, she has helped mainstream the concept of grief rituals as practiced by her community in Burkina Faso. “Hanging on to old pain just makes it grow until it smothers our creativity, our joy, and our ability to connect with others,” she writes. “It may even kill us. We are not meant to grieve in isolation.”
We don’t need to experience the loss of a loved one to grieve. Every day, there are the petites mortes, the death of dreams, of dashed expectations, of moments not shared, paths not taken, projects unfinished, friendships not blossomed, calls unreturned, opportunities not pursued, lessons unlearned, and books unread. There are countless hopes and expectations that could have launched a thousand parallel lives. Each path not taken is a little death.
I’m not practicing gratitude today. I’m not looking to turn myself on and burnish my flame. Today, I am leveling up with myself about where I am and, if tears emerge, I will allow them to flow.
I am reminded of Rumi’s poem, “The Guest House.”
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
If grief is knocking at your door, join me and invite it in.
FROM THE INSTITUTE OF PLEASURE STUDIES
Not sure how to welcome grief?
Grief has a different flavor for everyone. A helpful way to invite grief is to ask yourself what is the flavor and texture of your grief?
Community Grief Ritual
“When we don’t grieve, we end up living numbed-out, half-lived versions of our lives. And when we only grieve alone, we miss out on the support and healing available to us when we grieve in community,” says Bernadette Pleasant who is leading a Community Grief Ritual on January 30. You can register here.
TPR Book Club
Have you gotten your copy of UPLVL Communication yet? Join me for a conversation about venting and some bad-ass communication tools on February 7 from 7-8 PM EST. Sign up here.
And, finally! Relationship Tripping 2022: Are you in a committed partnership and want to set yourself up for a pleasure-filled year? Come join Joe and me for our 2022 Launch of Relationship Tripping where we will set our intentions and write a partnership manifesto for 2022. Sunday, January 23, 4-6 PM EST. Sign up here.