Giving Thanks
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1 Song rec
1 Book rec
1 Poem rec
Music in Prose
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Life feels like a country music song this fall. The artist seems to sing directly to me: Bela Flick and Abigail Washburn belt tunes out on the car speaker, banjos strumming, as I’m reminded of the death of loved ones.
If I could talk to a younger me
I’d tell me to go slow
This time on earth it moves so fast
And when it's gone, it's gone
When it’s gone, it's gone
[If I Could Talk to a Younger Me by Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn]
Then, I find myself crying in J-Mart, or crying in Flushing to be exact, the China Town of New York City. Michelle Zauner wrote all about this in her memoir of nearly-the-same name. Crying in H Mart.
I trek in to town as a kind of therapy. Queens has this undeniable pull on me: driving across the Whitestone Bridge, the Manhattan skyline on my right, going to the market, eating spicy beef soup at Pho Bang, and stopping by the duck house for take-out. All of it conjures up my mother. I went there for her, with her. I have errands to do, fruit to buy for the altar.
And, the jewelry. . . cracked jade to repair, bracelet to polish, broken earring post to fix, missing stone to replace, and so on.
Zauner described her emotional visit to H Mart in an article that grew into a best-sellng book. And I am living my own version, uncanny in its similarity. The disconnect with my mother’s world is profound as an Asian American, a Hapa who speaks English and has grown up with my mother’s food. Standing in the Chinese market, I sense her presence all around me.
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Prose and poetry you’ve read hits you hard when it follows experience.
Ms. Michaelson made me memorize Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, in the eighth grade. I remember sitting down with my mother on the overstuffed sectional behind the lime Formica counter in the kitchen. We talked about the meaning in his words. And from age fifteen to fifty-six, I’ve lived the lines: meeting the imposters Triumph and Disaster, trusting myself when all others doubt me, and filling the unforgiving minute.
Such writing when we return to it creates a kind of Déjà vu, like we’re living out the dance steps the writer choreographed for us. Wait! I’ve encountered this before.
Is the experience of the mind any more or less important than that which is lived?
The literature we read is a close cousin to the stories shared, especially those from someone who was close to us.
Pain shared is pain lessoned. Joy shared is joy expanded. C.S. Lewis said this or wrote it, somewhere. I listened to an actor breathe life into his words on Saturday night, during a play my friend suggested I see. This passage stayed with me.
And in this regard, I have been blessed: sharing the pain of the loss of my mother this fall with family and friends.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. A thousand thank yous to my dear family and friends for your love and kindness. It has buoyed me, made me laugh, and helped me through these 106 days since she died.
Enjoy each other. Take heart in the shared experience in music, poetry, and prose. Pain lessoned. Joy expanded.
Happy Thanksgiving to you, dear reader.
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