I opened and closed the “post” tab back and forth today for several times already. I am still in the process of getting my thoughts into a comprehensive kind of order in between tending to very sudden responsibilities in very saturnian departments. Zuhal, this one is for you, I guess.
Three days ago one of my in-laws passed away, very sudden and unexpected. I am currently taking care of the entire family and the burial preparations, travelling back and forth several hundreds of kilometers in between meeting their needs and and being present at my mundane work responsibilities at home. I haven’t really slept a whole lot since then, the entire situation is really emotional for everybody involved and understandably they are all looking at me and waiting for me to get everything in order; the local funeral home isn’t of great help, as the mortician in charge has been a long family friend and is all at sea about it himself. (Which ironically led him to ask me if I would be interested in taking over his business, some day. I am not.) Leraje has been of tremendous assistance in the energy department, letting me flit like a coked up Border Collie in between everybody and everything until now. I am exhausted but I know that I will go on like this until the funeral has been completed and everybody involved can be left to their own devices eventually.
I have bought myself a beautiful dark blue dress, the other day. For some reason dark blue has been a complete mood in my closet, carefully perching itself in between forestry greens and browns and the usual black. I’ve imagined myself to wear this dress on a completely different occasion; two days ago I was wearing it for the first time while preparing the wake and preventing fifteen crying, screaming and hyperventilating people from passing out. While everybodies tears, sweat, makeup and distress was collected by the fabric around my shoulders and chest area I had to think about Zuhal and her promise/threat/prophecy about this path. (I am not of a so called “death current” and I don’t perform any kind of its practices, to be clear about that.)
It doesn’t matter what I call myself professionally or where I choose to reside in that matter:
In a way I will always stay some sort of midwife to other peoples experiences in terms of loss, of death and finitude. Not the “I’ve sorted out my feelings towards this and now I want to talk about it” clean experience. Its the ugly and raw and resistive and in-between side of this experience that I am called to. The one that screams and breaks down and kicks and scratches while you’re trying to place at least a soft cushion underneath the whole thing. In that moment people instinctively cling to you and are appalled by your presence at the same time.
I start to believe that this is one of the things that keeps most people naturally apart from my way; an indistinct sort of vibe thats filled with other peoples grief, pain and rage that I can never entirely wash off of me.