My mom would say that “there is a Carly Simon song for pretty much any life situation.” Usually, we’d muse about Carly Simon while I was going thru some breakup or some other boy troubles. This is also why Little Black Book is one of my favorite movies because the mother/ daughter love of Carly Simon is a major plot point. Also the movie ends-spoilers- in her getting her dream job, screaming on the phone to her mom, meeting Carly Simon, and fainting.
I’ve been listening to Like a River a lot lately. I tried to listen to it shortly after Mom died. I still felt too numb to feel the feelings. Like I’d sing along with the lyrics and wonder why I wasn’t crying. Now I am in a place where it’s the thing I need to listen to. It’s the exact Carly Simon song that I need for the moment.
It’s funny but I feel like my grief angst is becoming more tangible. It’s less of an underlying stress that haunts me and more of a funk. A“low-lying-write-in-your-journal-and-blast-sad-folk-songs” funk. A very similar flavored funk to the “some boy did college Gail wrong...again” funk. I know how to do this funk. That’s the funk where I’m a songwriter and eat ice cream! Also I get to go thru an angst funk with a supportive partner at my side who will feed me snacks! Huzzah.
Recently I got the advice that you have to treat grief in an intentional way, otherwise it pals around with your survival mechanism. That is totally a thing. I get caught in loops where something will set off a feeling and I’ll go about my day, turn into a bit of a gremlin, and eventually something sets me off and I cry. I retrace my steps and I come back and realize it’s some facet of grief.
I suppose when I was going thru breakups or going thru major life transitions and feeling the funk it was easier to name the funk. Grief is a longer funk to unpack. It’s such a deep pain that the default is to self medicated and pretend that everything is fine and you put on your confidence and then the spiritual Jenga tower gets knocked down by your mom’s flour sifter that you find in a box in her garage...for example.
In breakups and life transitions it was more logical to unpack the transition. There are rituals in place for breakups that involve shenanigans with friends and journalling and ice cream and Thelma and Louise. When you lose a job or move to a new place there is also a level of grief but there are definite traditions in place and its easier to ask for what you need. In grief there are shenanigans with friends at the beginning when you are still a bit crazy pants and then the rest of the ritual is sort of DIY.
Working thru my loss has been like working thru a breakup with my childhood while simultaneously connecting with my inner child and make sure she gets to go on all the adventures. It’s been a complete reawakening and I’m grateful for it but it. Is. hard. This month is a slew of anniversaries of various points of mom’s struggle, culminating in her death on August 4th. Piecing together the events in my head feels like a fucked up cancer version of the stations of the cross. I am putting together all the pieces of her suffering and all the dates in my mind as I hit the anniversary points.
A year ago today I was hanging out in her hospital room. I had rushed to Iowa after I got a call that she was in the ICU after going into respiratory distress. We sat in her hospital room whist she was a little loopy on painkillers. We were talking some estate logistics but she would continuously assure us that she “had no intention on dying anytime soon.” She died about 10 days after that.
Years before she went back on chemo we were in her car listening to Carly Simon. “Like a River” came on. I got the “song intro tingles”. She immediately changed the track. My memory puts a particular harshness to this skipping. We didn’t unpack that moment but I remember it bothering me. I wasn’t aware enough to think that it poked her emotionally. I just remember being mad because I really liked the song.
I know it was hard for her. I forgive her for not being open about it.
She was a different person than I am. She liked to keep things private. If I were in her situation I most likely would have been incredibly open about how I was dying and scared and I probably would have written an album about it or something.
I am a person who dives head first into the sad song that will make me cry and surrenders to riding the wave. Pump of the Carly Simon and Ani Difranco. It’s gonna be a bumpy July to August.
