Tag: grief

by jad

Turned Upside Down

I did some art therapy today. Here’s my piece. The session was about processing grief however we might define it, and we were to use water, hodgepodge, and these colored bits of tissue paper that bleed ink when dabbed or spritzed with moisture. I knew I wanted to use squares and grabbed a stack and two large pieces of red and black and started with the shape they made when I’d set them on the desk. I was initially focused on how I felt, but as I repeated the red and black motif, I started thinking of dad and the … Continue reading “Turned Upside Down” →

by jad

Grove of the Grievers

“I’ll never stop looking for a signGive me a signGive me a sign I’ll never stop looking for a signGive me a signGive me a sign I’ll never stop looking for a signGive me a signGive me a sign.” Every year for the past several, I come to this retreat and hope for a reset, and every year it feels hollow or incomplete. This year is not radically different, but a shift has undeniably happened as well. A shift in me but also a shift in the things that have trapped me in this cycle of hope and frustration—a shift … Continue reading “Grove of the Grievers” →

by jad

The Red Thread

The other day, I shared a post I’d made 5 years ago as part of a writing challenge I’d given myself in 2020 called Twenty Weeks of Gratitude. It was a memory of project I worked on in 2015, which had roots in prior work I’d started 5 years before that, so you can imagine how everything might feel like a lifetime ago. Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream, or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream, etc. I recorded these videos when these threads unexpectedly came together while I was in Lebanon … Continue reading “The Red Thread” →

by jad

Fragile Frames

The tension between slowing down and keeping up the fight; between becoming useful and being left the hell alone; between caring less and caring so much more. That’s what how this feels. Like springtime in Seattle: the tension between two fronts. There’s a season for all things; a time for expansion and a time for contraction; a time for exploration and a time to make up your mind; a time to think and a time to act. That’s how this feels. Like an inflection point. A nonlinear timeline in the upper-left corner. “Do you feel fragmented?” A friend asked me … Continue reading “Fragile Frames” →

by jad

My Heart Sees It

Someone asked me if my dad’s roll of Kodak Advantix film had been used, and I was certain it hadn’t, so imagine my heartache seeing these frames come back from the lab. This is my baby sister when she was still a baby sister. That’s the balcony at our old place; the same balcony she took her work calls on when we hung out at the same place when I was back there in January. It looks different now. So do we. I didn’t expect to see these photos so quickly. I didn’t expect to feel the way I do … Continue reading “My Heart Sees It” →

by jad

Existential Jet Lag

I was checking my calendar to see if it was time to poke the photo lab about my Lebanon rolls when it occurred to me that I hadn’t even been back two weeks yet; why does it feel longer? Why does so much feel like existential jet lag right now? Twice in the last week, I’ve weirded myself out with my emotional responses or non-responses to things that came up. Shying away from conflict when I don’t normally; having a meltdown in a way I don’t recognize as myself; both ends of the spectrum, but both feeling foreign. There’s something … Continue reading “Existential Jet Lag” →

by jad

They Say Your Name is Amelia

The woman murdered by immolation in the New York subway was already sentenced to death by a society built on the ever-present threat of immiseration. The flames were stoked by a policing regime that serves and protects only property—it cannot see those without. And the fire roared and rose on the fuel of a spectacle we’ve been trained on for over a year—we no longer watch bodies burn with alarm. This is the new normal. Aaron told us so. And now she is ash that is still smoldering on the coals of reaction. Sister, they say your name is Amelia.You … Continue reading “They Say Your Name is Amelia” →

by jad

This Advent

Christmas is next week and soon it will be Epiphany, and then I’ll be boarding a flight I’ve been anticipating for a long time. I can’t believe it’s almost here. A few days after the news first broke, a coworker who’d experienced similar heartbreak and had been there for me in the long, liminal months of waiting, walked into my office with a silent, sad smile on her face; I smiled back and said: “The hour has finally come, huh?” She said: “Yeah…” Well, the hour has been striking ever since, and I’m still here in this liminal time — … Continue reading “This Advent” →

by jad

R.I.P. Velvet Q

I went to a funeral on Friday the 13th. It was the official end of Velvet Q, a local band we’ve loved and seen so many times over the years; this is Mallory writing the final set lists. I have two of those from concerts past. I didn’t take one of these. “While there are people still to miss me—I’m trying to die / I’m trying to say goodbye.” How much grieving is too much grieving? When are you allowed to become angry again? How does that song go again? Ah, yes. “I am a rock-bottom riser. And I owe … Continue reading “R.I.P. Velvet Q” →

by jad

32 Days

I didn’t want to mark a month, busying myself with the various “protagonisms” of the day, broadly understood. But now, 2 days later, the feelings are catching up with me. I’m thinking about all the arguing we’d be doing after the apparent “shattering” of the axis; he’d be telling me not to fall for the propaganda and I’d be insisting that he’s missing my point. I hear his voice in every cringe opinion I listen to among my new-found comrades so wrapped up in their “position in the imperial core” that they forget what it actually means to be “internationalist.” … Continue reading “32 Days” →