Lately my days exhaust me. I spend most of the hours that fill them on all the musts and needs, on taking care of the sweet little souls who depend on me. And trying my best not to give in to the belief that this world is a terrible, terrible place. A struggle these days, even on the good ones. I get to the end of each with little, if anything, left for myself. “It’s just that season of life,” I’m told. Which may be true, but isn’t particularly comforting. In the chaos of it all I’m finding it difficult to locate any desire to fuss with much of anything really, but especially film. It’s temporary, I know. The tide always flows before it ebbs. But deep down there’s still an ache to create, and I’ve found a great deal of comfort in going back to the thing I know well; a walk into the woods with my big digital camera, looking for reminders that beauty exists in this world.
Grief + Loneliness
“I see you there, suffering alone… You who are grieving losses… too complex or unbecoming to speak aloud. Blessed are you dear one. Searching for someone to understand, see your wounds… Blessed are you because your loneliness speaks a deep truth: you were never meant to do this alone.”
- Kate C Bowler, from The Lives We Actually Have
I’ve been thinking a lot about grief lately, and how isolating it can be. About what it’s like when your grief doesn’t look like everyone else’s; when its cause is unseen, its pain unspoken. It can feel like that leaves you invisible too.
“Blessed are you dear one. Searching for someone to understand, see your wounds…”
We had the most perfect thunderstorm here this morning. It seems like all we get in the way of storms anymore are the kind that are fast and angry. But this was one of those quintessentially Southern thunderstorms I remember from my childhood: slow and slack and subdued. The sun wasn’t even up yet when it started, and as the rain began to fall a bit heavier I caught the occasional grumble of thunder off in the distance. As it lazily meandered closer the rain wavered between a steady lull and a heavy rush. It must have lasted at least a half hour, and I spent all of it curled up in my bed just at the edge of sleep, the only sounds the storm and my own gentle breathing. It felt like a secret that the universe whispered only to me.