My dears, listen, this blog has so many days felt like a lifeline.
Writing that – “lifeline” – I pictured, in quick proliferation: a towline, like with a mule on the Erie Canal; a muddy tug-of-war rope at some happy family picnic; an IV drip; the belaying line connecting mountaineers; a fast-turning jumprope; the string between tin-can telephones; and a vertiginous tightrope… They are all apt enough. I can’t pick.
Okay, maybe it can be more of a transom. Or not a transom; what do you call those pass-through windows, like at a jail, or a kitchen, where you can hand steaming dishes on a tray to the person on the other side?
For five years I’ve been gathering up little fragments of my life, our lives, making tiny mosaics and poking them through the hole, hoping someone on the other side would catch them before they fell and scattered; and that someone could make sense of them. And you’ve been on the other side with your hands out patiently, catching our stories, regarding them with warm interest, and then sending back nourishing lunches with encouraging notes written on napkins tucked inside.
Thank you.
I will keep writing here.
But —
and —
meanwhile —
I am also interested in rounder conversations. I am not the only thinker/lover/liver around these parts. In my own life I am thinking about how to carry the painful beauty of this whole experience forward, how to nurture art and joy and audacity. And I’m curious to hear how it is for others. I know some of you folks write, or take pictures, or make music or art in all sorts of ways. Or maybe you don’t, usually, but you might if someone made a place for you. Or maybe there are questions you’d like to ask, theories you are playing with, dreams to be interpreted. Maybe you read something that helped or illuminated or startled, and you’d like to pass it around the campfire. Maybe you are lonely and sad and could use the company.
I learned from Val the power of opening the door and inviting people in.
So here is an invitation: after mulling it over with some folks, I’ve started a shared blog as an experimental gathering place for people affected (intimately or distantly) by Val’s life. I envision this as a(nother) space for shared grieving, celebrating, thinking out loud, and striving toward courage, curiosity and life. I’ve explained more on the blog. There are “about” and “how” tabs to get you oriented.
We are calling it many shiny crows.
Love,
Deborah
