By chance or providence, I was reading a memoir on grief on the day my grandfather passed away (last Wednesday). I finished reading it last night. Joan Didion's The Year Of Magical Thinking details the year after the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. The book spoke to several of the various anxieties I shuffle through these days, many of which intersect at least indirectly with the loss of my mother's father.
I should say, however, that I didn't find The Year Of Magical Thinking so comforting because of the obvious common denominator of loss. Joan Didion's book is about Joan Didion. It isn't about me, my grandfather, or even my grandmother. I resist the urge to look for "life lessons" in her account. There is always a tendency while under stress to read books (and everything else) through a self-help grid, but I find this kind of pragmatism irresponsible and, when I see it in myself, more than a little desperate. The points of sympathy between myself and the author are more thematic: being part of a family, having memories, experiencing change. What's so comforting about Didion's writing is her honesty and candor, two qualities I'm finding it difficult to cultivate. Stress seems to drive them both just out of my reach.
"I'm fine."
"The service was wonderful... it was so nice seeing everyone."
"Houston is such a great city; I've had so much support, here."
"I'm meeting so many new people."
"Right now I'm just enjoying working an hourly job and exploring my options."
"God's been really working in my heart, lately."
(Translation: let's stay on the surface, redirect, distract, or say what I want to be true... I'm afraid of how I really feel, right now.)
Thinking back, perhaps honesty and candor were temporarily out of reach for Joan Didion, as well. Some of her statements suggested this. Perhaps writing The Year of Magical Thinking was a way of saying how it really was.
A way to maintain some integrity.
Which could be what blogging is all about.
Posted by nickles at March 5, 2008 09:05 AM | TrackBackThat's a beautiful Bob.
Posted by: Adelaide at March 6, 2008 12:33 PMno lie, i totally believe you're right. especially about the blogging part.
thoughts that surfaced when reading this include many things, and I even wrote a whole paragraph, realizing at the end that I didn't believe quite what i wrote on candor and honesty. but here's what i wrote next:
and i'd say more (not like im not going to see you in 3 hours or anything) but this chick sitting near me is talking about how two friends committed suicide as if it's another episode of The Real World. and that bothers me. but yet again, as if to possibly further my point, she sounds a little too candor and honest about blatant facts such as how her friends killed themselves.
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awkward.
see you soon! (oh coldplay)