My nickname has been "the bird" since I was a little girl. A name I was given by my dad when I was roughly three years of age and trying to fly with determination and utter disregard for life and limb. The name stuck. I have been changing the idea of "flying" away and toying with the idea of "staying"and opening to the uncertainties of life. Several years ago I did a series of self portraits embracing various expressions of the psyche. Recently, I have found myself drawing again. In fact I began this drawing, 11x14 graphite, two nights ago and although it is far from complete I am sharing it. While working on it I found myself becoming ridiculously giddy. Then the thought hit me right between the eyes ..."THE BIRD". My nickname. And I have been laughing ever since.
Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the
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Perfect.