Day: June 20, 2008

Music

Margaret vs. Pauline

Shelly

I’ve been cat sitting for folks who live out in the country, so I’ve been doing more driving than normal. I grabbed some random CDs, because I wanted new car music. One of them was unlabeled. It had a couple of Neko Case songs on it. I love this one, but every once in awhile it sneaks up on me and makes me teary.

Margaret is the fragments of a name
Her love pours like a fountain
Her love steams like rage
Her jaw aches from wanting
And she’s sick from chlorine
But she’ll never be as clean
As the cool-side-of-satin Pauline

Uncategorized

Grief

Shelly

Somewhere near the top of the list of Bad Advice for Condoling the Bereaved is the expression, “It’s for the best.” Why on earth would anyone say that, even if they believed in their heart of hearts that it was 100% true?

On the other hand, Echidne, who recently lost someone very dear to her, had some perfect and beautiful words to say about grief

It’s like having to learn the world again. Every day the new world is more familiar, of course. But I still wake up feeling as if my outer shell has disappeared, feeling as if I have to defend myself against my own grief.
[..]
It’s all about those intricate webs of memory, love and dependency, and the webs have been cut through by that dark sickle of death. They must be mended, rewoven, repaired, and while that process happens one grieves.

She also talks about how grief keeps sneaking up on you. She likens it to rotten floorboards, where everything seems fine until you take one random step and it swallows you up again. I think that’s a pretty good analogy.