In a Time of Grieving (Winter 2024-Spring 2025) 

Minolta SRT-200 + Streetpan 400, Cinestill 800, Aurora 800.

It’s said well by the main character, Olga, in Elena Ferrantes grief novel, Days of Abandonment. Olga says, “In those long hours, I was the sentinel of grief. Keeping watch along with a crowd full of dead words”. This is how she recounts a period of grief in which she submerged herself in writing. I’ve written a lot in grief but so much of it was soaked in well whiskey—“dead words”. 

My words are better said, by Olga again, later in the book, “I have to relearn…the tranquil pace of those who believe they know where they’re going and why.” What’s said by Olga is acted upon by Hala Alyan, in her memoir, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home. Alyan writes, “The game I played is an old one: I pretended I was no longer my present self. I had tapped myself out… and so the self that knew it would end stepped in. She endured it because she was proof it had been endured.” She buttresses this coping mechanism with a playful idea. She tells us, “I’m most interested in the future self: the one that is soothing, cheering on, watching like a minor god from just up ahead.”

Moses Sumney chimes in with lyrics that, at least I surmise, are written to a future him who has passed through grief. In his song Lucky Me he sings, in that silk ribbon voice of his, “You're a star, and although we bleed the same way, the big world needs you more. So go on again.” 

I go on again  and when a past me shows up I embrace him. I won’t have words of my own for him. Instead, I’ll share with him music and literature as a guide to maneuvering the mirror room. When he reads, or listens, he’ll feel my warmth and hear me “cheering on, watching like a minor god from just up ahead.” I’ll show him that I kept the photos he took—for he should know as murky as the world was to him, I see him tack sharp. That funny figure in the fray will feel my love near and far.