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Ghost Road

/ jelizabeth / 6 Comments

Note: At the beginning of May, I joined a 30-day writing course designed by Megan Devine, founder of Refuge in Grief.  Every day we get a writing prompt, and there is a secret Facebook group to post to and share writing with other members. There are losses of all sorts, mostly deaths, and some losses are recent and some, like mine, more in the past. There is something special about the group — I joined for the writing, and I’ve gotten much more. Find more info about signing up for the next group here: link. My post for Day #19, unedited, is below.

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Image credit: Belmont Public Library

“You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Last night when I got home I asked Grace what she had done with her day. She is newly home from her first year of college. She told me that she and Elena (cousin) had gone to Ghost Road, off of Chickatawbut Road in Milton, to take Winston for a walk around a secret pond.

“I remember the day we later found out that Dad had died, Sally had taken us for a walk earlier that day around that secret pond in Chestnut Hill,” she told me.

“What? What?” I ask, confused. “You went on a walk the day Dad died? Who went?”

“Sally took me, Eli, Lydia, and Sara,” replied Grace. “Then later the police officer came and told us Dad died.”

It was one of those moments when I realized there was something I had forgotten, or never knew, from that confusing, consuming time that Jimmy died. In the days preceding July 25, 2016, when all we knew is that he had run away and no one could find or reach him, we swung between huddling together and trying to solve the mystery — Where is Jimmy? — to carrying on as usual with grocery shopping, dog walking, and (me) working. It was summer school time, and I was teaching a class.

So, I learned or was reminded, on the day we found out, in the afternoon, that Jimmy had been found dead in a hotel room, —

Wow, I had to pause there after I wrote that. I have a life, I had a life, in which the man I was married to, was estranged from, would run away and go to a hotel room and die of an overdose.

I don’t always think of that. The facts of that day. All I can picture is the moment the police detective, Matthew Something, drove up and got out of his car in a Red Sox shirt thrown over his uniform. I can never forget that and I never want to: the vivid Red Sox shirt, all white with the red trim and lettering, over the dark uniform and against the darkness of his car. He walked over to me standing there outside. He had called ahead. After days of searching for Jimmy, I knew what he would say before he said it. Sally was standing outside with me, on the driveway. He walked over. He told us, “Mrs. Kokernak” (no one calls me that), “I am sorry to tell you that your husband’s body has been found.” And then, the details of the finding. The questions about the name of his doctor, and his psychiatrist. They would investigate. There was likely no crime. He could not tell me the cause of death. Then the kids come outside, Eli, Lydia, Grace. One of them ask from the front porch — Sally and I still in the driveway — “Mom?” as if my name and the question mark ask everything.

“Dad has died,” I say. “He is found.” Continue reading →

To anyone who has a heart

/ jelizabeth / 6 Comments

On profound occasions, a person like me feels the pressure to come up with some profound words to mark the moment. I have none ready-made.

Today was the last meeting with my physical trainer, Kim Gomez, because we are moving. For the last year-and-a-half, with almost no breaks in our schedule, I lifted, stretched, lunged, and hinged two times per week. This has been one of my most important new relationships in the two years since Jimmy died, and we didn’t talk that much. I’m not a small talker, and neither is she. Of course, we talked. More significantly, she believed in me and she pushed me, and as my body got stronger my mind did too. It’s hard to come back after a trauma. If you ever have to do something like that yourself, reader, make your body do something. The mind doesn’t always lead the way. Often, the body does.

We both knew it was the last day, and I wondered how I would mark the occasion, though I didn’t plan it out as I usually plan things out. I actually hurt my back mid-lift, and instead of maxing out on lifts and lunges, Kim led me through stretches and extensions until I was okay again.

I couldn’t look at her in the last few minutes. I looked away, steadying my voice, and said, “It’s hard to put into spoken words what I want to say. I’m going to write it down and leave it for you.” She embraced me. Maybe she said my name – I love when my name is called. I hugged her back, and in the air next to her head I said, “Kim, you have been a great friend to me, in the work you do and the way you do it. I’m strong again. I’ll never forget you.” She responded, “I’m proud of you. Email me anytime if you have questions.” We parted. I stopped to look out a window.

Today is also the two-year anniversary or yahrzeit of Jimmy’s death from suicide. Here is his obituary: link. This event in our lives was truly “unexpected.” And yet, like so many stunning events, it also made sense to us as we reflected on it. The fragments fit together.

Just that something makes sense doesn’t mean that we feel any loving kindness toward this truth, any deep peace. Recently, talking about love, Eli said to me, “Mom, I have a feeling that for the rest of our lives all four of us will be experiencing everything through this layer of trauma.”  I thought this: “… even if that layer thins over time.” Continue reading →

Creativity, power, and compliance

/ jelizabeth / 1 Comment

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The writing of this post, though not the content, was inspired by this link, on writer’s block, anxiety, and writing itself as the therapy:

It may be that learning to do creative work of any kind—not just direct imagery exercises—may help combat writer’s block. Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist who is the scientific director of the Imagination Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-author of “Wired to Create,” says, “When one feels writer’s block, it’s good to just keep putting things down on paper—ideas, knowledge, etc.”

I don’t feel as though I have writer’s block, but I haven’t been writing. Why not 20 minutes a day? Start now.

I went to a lecture today for one of my classes at MIT, 2.00b Toy Product Design. The professor was leading students through a list of commonly misunderstood and misused terms: engine vs motor; nut vs. washer; die vs. tap; and so on. He got to energy vs. power. He asked for the definition of energy, and a student answered close enough.

He asked, “What is power?” and a student blurted out, “A great responsibility.” I laughed, the professor laughed, and many students in the class laughed.

The definition for power actually is “amount of work or energy transfer per unit of time.” It’s a rate.

I learn a lot in these classes about engineering. In another class this week, I deepened my knowledge of stepper motors. These are very ingenious things.

But this afternoon, as I left class and walked to get some dinner because I have a night lab at 7 PM also in the toy design class, I was thinking about power as a responsibility. The professor had added, after the laughter died down, that he hoped it wouldn’t be used for evil, and he meant the social relations kind, but I suppose also you could apply it to the physics principle. Let’s not use machine power, for example, to plow a vehicle into a crowd.

I have power, and I have prerogative as to how I’ll use it. Over the weekend a dear friend gave me a high compliment: she said I was one of the two most “self-directed people” she knows. That is a kind of power. Therefore, it makes me bristle sometime to have people try to exert their power over me – not the law so much (I’ll comply with that), but the demands or instructions of others especially when they are not consistent with my values or desires.

Jimmy, my husband, once said I am “typical GenX: outwardly compliant and inwardly defiant.” This is true too. Even when I bristle at the demands of others, I often will fulfill them, for peace or ease or even the satisfaction of others.

Is there another generation that is inwardly compliant and outwardly defiant? Some people are this way. They act out, though inside their desires are conventional. (I think of compliant as having to do with some set of rules or expectations or sentiments shared broadly in the culture, and not, oh, compliant with the weather.) An employee, for example, may make a lot of commotion at work in the form of complaints or acting out, but inside s/he is really wanting job security, a promotion, and praise. S/he looks like a change maker or ballbuster but really her/his comfort zone is in safe territory.

Some people want others to have power OVER them to keep themselves in line. Like a friend who says, “Please yell at me if I start drinking too much.” Okay, in that instance, that can be a nice thing for a friend to do, be your external monitor, but it also means you don’t have to muster up your own power. Continue reading →

Tuesday night on the couch with the dog

/ jelizabeth / 6 Comments

IMG_9830Ten minutes ago I searched for a photograph of “Jennifer Lopez without makeup.” I really did that. Her bare face is good and looks like her, although the photo caption claimed that “She is unrecognizable!”

This is not true. What makes Lopez so beautiful in full makeup, I’d argue, is that her basic face is very strong. It’s like an apartment or house with good bones – put a long narrow couch in the living room and a picture on the wall and it’s stunning.

I put the timer on for 24 minutes, the amount of time I would set aside for a nap. (I do time my naps so that I don’t overindulge and later have trouble sleeping.) What’s wrong with me?? Must everything be rationed or limited? In childhood, time could be wasted. You even had to kill some of it, there was too much.

My friend Lee is blogging daily, and Susan almost every day. I love when I get email notification that there is a new post from one of them. I’m excited, even though for the most part they are not writing essays, or full accounts, or incisive commentary. I love their posts, in fact, for not being any of those things. There is no thesis or provocation, and yet their words linger, make me think new thoughts (even if little ones), and best of all make me want to write things down.

I have been writing things down in letters, condolence notes, lists, and notebooks. There are a few personal emails but that as a medium for keeping in touch has become fraught or almost disappointing in advance. Will an email be read or shoved aside until there is more time later? Would the recipient rather I had instant-messaged them? Or will we all end up replying to replies, as Heidi Julavitz remarked so aptly in her odd yet riveting book, The Folded Clock. Note: Lee or Susan, I wonder if you have read any of this book and what you think of it.

The trick with free writing is not to look at the clock, to just keep going.

Winston the Dog is dozing next to me on the couch. He seems content just to be with us: Where you go, I go. If someone were to go stand near the kitchen door right now and rattle his leash, he would spring into full energy and run to meet them. Hey, yeah, let’s go outside, I’m ready! This is a wonderful thing about a dog. He doesn’t need the transition time or the grouch time or the resistance time that people do. He would never say, “One minute!” and then take 10 minutes. (I do that.) Every state is immediately attractive and doable. Continue reading →

Teacher sets words aside and dreams a new self and new start

/ jelizabeth / 3 Comments

In this dream, I was sewing. Professionally.

An MIT friend and colleague, Juhan, had hired me to make 12 small quilts for baby beds, which he was going to install in a blank room to showcase wearable technologies for babies. The devices would be hidden under the colorful, hand-sewn quilts, so that when a viewer turned back the quaint covering, she would be surprised by hardware underneath. The room would be white, as well as the frames of the baby beds, so that the only color would be provided by the calico quilt squares. The hardware would be a buffed steel color, soft and glimmering.

In this dream, I also was aware of myself as a sophomore at MIT, a student mainly studying the liberal arts. I didn’t have a sense of myself as an adult living a youngster’s life; I really dreamed I was age 20, young and looking toward the future. (In other dreams, when my life situation is of a younger person, I am still aware of having a husband and children, and it is only the situation that is altered, not myself.) From my freelance quilt-making project, I suddenly realized — dream/realized — that I wanted to change my course of study from the liberal arts to something that would set me up to work in fabrics.

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I had an epiphany: materials science. The dream/plan crystallized. I started to worry. Dream/self realized that I hadn’t taken any science or math since high school, and I would need some to get into materials science. So I decided to enroll in Introduction to Biology for the spring. Then… then!… I can immerse myself in materials science next fall, I thought to my dream/self, who was very excited.

Hmmm, I worried. I might not be able to cram a whole major into two years of college. I might have to add another year onto my undergraduate degree.

Oh, so what? I said to my dream/self. You’ll be able to afford it — you’re at MIT, and when you graduate, you will start making some real money. Not liberal arts money. ENGINEERING money.

Dream/self was very proud of herself. She felt certain that she had had an insight into her deep, real, and abiding interests, and that her true career love had been revealed to her. She was charting a course for a future that would always suit her, a career she would never doubt. Her interest would never flag.

She was starting. She had a plan. Before too long, she would be designing the fabrics of the future*.

*And this is how I ended the account of my dream to Jimmy, when I described it to him this morning. I would be designing the fabrics of the future.

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Image, Lego Dress, from Playing Futures: Applied Nomadology on Flickr via a creative commons license.