When my daughter was practicing for her drivers’ permit, one of her brothers, home from college, asked to use my car to take her for a lesson in backing up. As they left the house, I said, “ be careful”. ( “ Careful” will find its’ way into this account, but not as I had intended). I prepared dinner, lit candles and if memory is correct, it was spring and the windows were open. A beautiful evening. An hour later, my son walked through the kitchen door, somber and serious. “ You should come outside, Mom”. I followed him to the back of my car, my little blue VW Fox. My pretty little, perfect, car. Opening the trunk, my shaken daughter beside me, my brave son revealed my tail pipe, very “carefully” wrapped in a blanket. Backing up into a large boulder was not the intended lesson. It was the sight of that broken muffler, loving wrapped as if a present, missing only a ribbon, that sent laughter through my body. The contrasts were delicious.,” Time for dinner”, I said, joyful my children were home safe. We ate, shared wine, stories and laughter. Years later, my son wrote in a Mother’s Day card that he took a valuable lesson from that event. Life happens. We have a choice how we will respond.
I’m grateful for the wisdom granted me thot evening and the good fruit it bore, years later. It was given to me from the heart of all love.
I’m grateful, too, for your message here, Suleika. For the past year and a half I’ve been nursing losses that have felt insurmountable. Losses that have turned my world around. Losses that I know want to instruct me. Until now, I was not ready to face whatever truths may, oh, most surely do, lay hidden in the pain. Like that broken muffler, there is a lesson. There is a gift. Waiting. In this quiet season, I, too, am waking early and gathering strength for the journey. As I do, I remember this line attributed to St. Theresa of Avila, “ God writes straight with crooked lines”. I am a crooked line.
My mother...she has advanced dementia now, but before, she was a giver of wisdom and I am just now beginning to run it all through my soul. She would say, in the face of my difficulties, "Laugh, and rise above it." I received a rejection from a small publishing house, with the words, "We do not accept writing of such low stature." Ouch-super sting. And then, I laughed and thought, "Fucking idiot. Taking your existential hate for life out on me." I continue to write.
Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
A time I laughed in defiance of death was very tragic, yet I did laugh. In 1999, I was pregnant for a full 40 weeks, entering into week 41 when my beautiful daughter Sophia Michelle passed in utero. I had to deliver her which was absolutely, hands down the most difficult experience of my life. I can feel my body viscerally reacting as I write and share this. We lived in the Berkshires at the time. My sister drove up from Connecticut to sit by my side in the hospital as I held and mourned my deceased child. My sister had thoughtfully brought me something to eat - peanut butter crackers. I realized I hadn't eaten in many hours and suddenly I was hungry. I sat there in bed with sweet Sophia in my arms, eating peanut butter crackers. Watching the crumbs fall all over the place, I began to laugh! My sister looked startled. I said "here I am in life, eating peanut butter crackers while holding my dead baby". And we both laughed so hard tears ran down our faces. I was in so much shock all that day, I hadn't shed a tear and yet, here I was laughing. My sister and I were walking that fine, fine line between laughter and sobbing, in this situation, between life and death. I am a blessed mother that Sophia and Anjelica chose me to love and support them on their short journeys here on Earth. And at times, for me to endure this, it has taken deep laughter for I will not allow Death to spiral me into permanent grieving through sadness.
I’ll begin again. In the late 90’s my mother’s brother , Uncle Sam died. He wasn’t a very nice man to me and others. I’m being kind because he was a sexual perpetrator to me as a young girl and to many others. Growing up in the silent generation nothing was said and by the time I had courage to confront him, he died. So I go to his funeral out respect to my parents, that was in Peabody Mass. Many of my other relatives like my Beautiful Aunt Rose and Aunt Itka are buried there so I buy lilies to lay before their graves to honor them. I’m feeling rage about my uncle, sadness and grief and after services were over I asked my Uncle Irving to show me where the family was buried. Uncle Irving hates funerals, is quite stressed and wants to leave quickly and quickly points to where our families headstones. My love Michael and I walk there and I’m crying, and laying lilies on the ground in front of each headstone, and I suddenly lookup at the names on each headstone and it ain’t my family. Michael and I thru our tears, begin laughing hysterically at the mistake, while I pickup each Lily and apologize to each grave and finally find the family graves. When I came back to NzyC I used all this as grist fir a monologue I was working in drama class for the wife’s monologue over Will Lohman’s grave in “Death of a Salesman”
Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
When I was 17 and working in the theater, I went through a peirod of depression and angst. My home life sucked and I realized temporality. Henry Sutton, our stage manager and a second father gave me a bereavement card for my birthday. Frank Corsaro- gave me a copy of Mad Magazine-- and I belive told me to laugh. Then I read a version of Ramayana by Aubrey Menen--which ended in his words-- what is life I remember two human folly and laughter.... and then years later i paid homage to Rumi by walking in Cappadocia and Koyna--- I have looked for Sufi's for many years.. and this reading makes me wake up and know that my eyes have been shut for a while--
Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
My father is 93. Since my mother, his wife of 70 years, died of Covid in 2020, he has wanted to die. He and I talk every morning and often, we talk about the ways in which he could die. "Throw yourself hard against a wall," I suggest. He goes on to say that given his luck, he'd probably break some bones, have a head trauma but not die. Sometimes, when he answers the phone, I'll say "oh, god, I'm sorry you made it through another night. And invariably, we laugh so hard, one of us will pee our pants. It may sound macabre or cruel to some, but both of us always feel more alive when we say goodbye.
Dec 17, 2023·edited Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
“Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance. Bad luck, loss, pain—if you make something out of it, then you’ve no longer been bested by these events.” What I love about this is the sense of defiance, that refusal to be subsumed by the terrible thing, which given that we are mere mortals is inevitable.
This. It's always worth cocooning for this process and all that comes from it <3
Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
I remember sitting in the forest, truck wrecked from a mistake moments before, laughing my ass off thinking, I hated this truck anyway.....................embarrassingly hilarious.
Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
Lately, I've been reading sonnets by Shakespeare, and listening to Jim Pearce "the ever present" the melody is so comforting. Making jewelry is personal and emotional, but times I must find my escape to recharge from the stories of my customers. I have to find ways of new inspiration and finding peace in my heart so I don't carry all the weight of so many in pain. I do find time for laughter, but then I feel guilty when I do laugh hard. So, I allow myself to be immersed into love of so many ways, and kindness that's my solitude of grace. Blessings, everyone. 🙏🏼✨️💕
Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
My mom came from humble roots. Immigration. Poverty. I saw her as stoic. Her joy was practical. Near the end of her life I spent three months caring for her 24/7. Nights I slept lightly listening for her in the next room. Every night after she fell into a deep sleep I could hear her. She was laughing. She had no recollection of it when I mentioned it to her during the day. But it was delightful to hear her buried mirth erupt as she slept. Like she was chatting with God. She’s long passed but remembering this makes me smile.
Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
During the pandemic my daughter, Chloe, was going through chemotherapy for terminal brain cancer. She and I would take our dog, Baxter, on car rides, any chance we got. It was a great way to get out of the house and break up the monotony of the days. On one such trip, we took Baxter to pick up a curbside order from our local IKEA. When the large, flat box was placed in the back of our SUV, Baxter decided he wanted to sit on top of it, right in the middle, for the car ride home. We tried to coax him to the front seats, but he stubbornly stayed in place. As we turned corners and started and stopped through rush hour traffic, Baxter slid back and forth across the box, tap dancing his way around and skidding to a halt each time he reached an edge. But he persistently made his way back to the center, each time. Chloe and I started laughing, uncontrollably, at it. It was the most ridiculous and pathetic looking thing ever. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed...more and more...harder and harder...Eventually, I had to pull the car over to the side of the road. Chloe leaned her seat back and curled up, holding her stomach as she shook with laughter. I gripped the steering wheel and curled into it as my stomach tightened with pain from laughing so hard. We both had tears streaking down our cheeks. We laughed...and laughed...and laughed... I can only think of a couple times in my life I've laughed so hard. It felt so good. There we were, in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of chemotherapy, in the face of a terrifying, terminal diagnosis, laughing our behinds off at our ridiculous, stubborn dog.
My family members have always used humor as a way to soothe us through what at times have been horrendous circumstances. Many of us have talked about how, no matter how many years or miles separate us, many of our family members have very similar senses of humor and at times our phone calls are more comedy routines than catch up sessions. We love to laugh. Inevitably, when many of us are around one table, one of us (usually me) will start laughing and we all end up laughing until we cry and cannot stop. I often thought of my father (a man who lived with horrendous pain and eventually committed suicide) as a "Johnny Carson" character. Decades later, life circumstances have calmed and soothed, and from one end of the country to the other, our love for each other and for laughter ties us all together. My own writing has been a way to "wrestle back power" that experiences used to hold over me. I'm looking forward to developing a habit of journaling with you all during 2024.
My late, great dad used to say, “ it’s better to have laughed at all! Than never to have laughed at all! “ …. Maybe you had to be there - it was during a party with good friends and lotsa booze 😏. I mention it because it makes the point that laugh no matter what - even if you feel horrible, the world has gone to hell in a hand basket etc, laughing is free , you have total agency over it and makes you feel free and alive !
Dec 17, 2023·edited Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
I’m so glad, dear Suleika, that you are taking time to yourself to read, write and reflect. I am over the moon excited to hear more about your new book and your upcoming exhibit. I’m right up the road in New Haven and will absolutely make it to experience those beautiful watercolors in person!
Dec 17, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
The paradox of finding ways to live our lives joyfully with evidence of our mortality all around us (and sometimes in us) is grist for our creative mills. This TIJ group is like a haven of fellows who are so relatable. I really value the forum and reading everyone's comments.
Many years ago I heard a bang on my living room window. I went outside and found a stunned little bird on the ground. I wrapped it in my blouse, found a shoebox and grabbed a kitchen towel. I wanted to let it recover awhile, so put the box next to my tortoise on her heated floor. It took about 20 minutes until the fluttering started inside the box- it was recovered and ready to fly. I took the box outside and lifted it high under the big oak- hoping it would find a close branch to continue its recovery.
I opened the box and out it flew - right into the swooping grasp of a hawk ! I rescued the bird just to release it to instant death! I was mortified angry bereft weeping. How could my good intentions go so wrong? I realized that the bird had flown into the window while fleeing the hawk in the first place! And what a patient hunter the hawk was- did it know to wait? Did it know the bird would be released and it just waited? Would I have chosen not to rescue the bird if I had known about the hawk? I don't think so. The world and the processes of life and death are so much more complex than I can grasp.
I think about an excerpt from
The Brief for the Defense
by Jack Gilbert:
"If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction, we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world."
So I live in my stubbornness , trying to be true and find joy and sometimes causing more harm than good blundering into professes deeper than I comprehend. ❤️🐝
When my daughter was practicing for her drivers’ permit, one of her brothers, home from college, asked to use my car to take her for a lesson in backing up. As they left the house, I said, “ be careful”. ( “ Careful” will find its’ way into this account, but not as I had intended). I prepared dinner, lit candles and if memory is correct, it was spring and the windows were open. A beautiful evening. An hour later, my son walked through the kitchen door, somber and serious. “ You should come outside, Mom”. I followed him to the back of my car, my little blue VW Fox. My pretty little, perfect, car. Opening the trunk, my shaken daughter beside me, my brave son revealed my tail pipe, very “carefully” wrapped in a blanket. Backing up into a large boulder was not the intended lesson. It was the sight of that broken muffler, loving wrapped as if a present, missing only a ribbon, that sent laughter through my body. The contrasts were delicious.,” Time for dinner”, I said, joyful my children were home safe. We ate, shared wine, stories and laughter. Years later, my son wrote in a Mother’s Day card that he took a valuable lesson from that event. Life happens. We have a choice how we will respond.
I’m grateful for the wisdom granted me thot evening and the good fruit it bore, years later. It was given to me from the heart of all love.
I’m grateful, too, for your message here, Suleika. For the past year and a half I’ve been nursing losses that have felt insurmountable. Losses that have turned my world around. Losses that I know want to instruct me. Until now, I was not ready to face whatever truths may, oh, most surely do, lay hidden in the pain. Like that broken muffler, there is a lesson. There is a gift. Waiting. In this quiet season, I, too, am waking early and gathering strength for the journey. As I do, I remember this line attributed to St. Theresa of Avila, “ God writes straight with crooked lines”. I am a crooked line.
A blessed Sunday to all of you. Love, Jacqueline
My mother...she has advanced dementia now, but before, she was a giver of wisdom and I am just now beginning to run it all through my soul. She would say, in the face of my difficulties, "Laugh, and rise above it." I received a rejection from a small publishing house, with the words, "We do not accept writing of such low stature." Ouch-super sting. And then, I laughed and thought, "Fucking idiot. Taking your existential hate for life out on me." I continue to write.
A time I laughed in defiance of death was very tragic, yet I did laugh. In 1999, I was pregnant for a full 40 weeks, entering into week 41 when my beautiful daughter Sophia Michelle passed in utero. I had to deliver her which was absolutely, hands down the most difficult experience of my life. I can feel my body viscerally reacting as I write and share this. We lived in the Berkshires at the time. My sister drove up from Connecticut to sit by my side in the hospital as I held and mourned my deceased child. My sister had thoughtfully brought me something to eat - peanut butter crackers. I realized I hadn't eaten in many hours and suddenly I was hungry. I sat there in bed with sweet Sophia in my arms, eating peanut butter crackers. Watching the crumbs fall all over the place, I began to laugh! My sister looked startled. I said "here I am in life, eating peanut butter crackers while holding my dead baby". And we both laughed so hard tears ran down our faces. I was in so much shock all that day, I hadn't shed a tear and yet, here I was laughing. My sister and I were walking that fine, fine line between laughter and sobbing, in this situation, between life and death. I am a blessed mother that Sophia and Anjelica chose me to love and support them on their short journeys here on Earth. And at times, for me to endure this, it has taken deep laughter for I will not allow Death to spiral me into permanent grieving through sadness.
I’ll begin again. In the late 90’s my mother’s brother , Uncle Sam died. He wasn’t a very nice man to me and others. I’m being kind because he was a sexual perpetrator to me as a young girl and to many others. Growing up in the silent generation nothing was said and by the time I had courage to confront him, he died. So I go to his funeral out respect to my parents, that was in Peabody Mass. Many of my other relatives like my Beautiful Aunt Rose and Aunt Itka are buried there so I buy lilies to lay before their graves to honor them. I’m feeling rage about my uncle, sadness and grief and after services were over I asked my Uncle Irving to show me where the family was buried. Uncle Irving hates funerals, is quite stressed and wants to leave quickly and quickly points to where our families headstones. My love Michael and I walk there and I’m crying, and laying lilies on the ground in front of each headstone, and I suddenly lookup at the names on each headstone and it ain’t my family. Michael and I thru our tears, begin laughing hysterically at the mistake, while I pickup each Lily and apologize to each grave and finally find the family graves. When I came back to NzyC I used all this as grist fir a monologue I was working in drama class for the wife’s monologue over Will Lohman’s grave in “Death of a Salesman”
When I was 17 and working in the theater, I went through a peirod of depression and angst. My home life sucked and I realized temporality. Henry Sutton, our stage manager and a second father gave me a bereavement card for my birthday. Frank Corsaro- gave me a copy of Mad Magazine-- and I belive told me to laugh. Then I read a version of Ramayana by Aubrey Menen--which ended in his words-- what is life I remember two human folly and laughter.... and then years later i paid homage to Rumi by walking in Cappadocia and Koyna--- I have looked for Sufi's for many years.. and this reading makes me wake up and know that my eyes have been shut for a while--
My father is 93. Since my mother, his wife of 70 years, died of Covid in 2020, he has wanted to die. He and I talk every morning and often, we talk about the ways in which he could die. "Throw yourself hard against a wall," I suggest. He goes on to say that given his luck, he'd probably break some bones, have a head trauma but not die. Sometimes, when he answers the phone, I'll say "oh, god, I'm sorry you made it through another night. And invariably, we laugh so hard, one of us will pee our pants. It may sound macabre or cruel to some, but both of us always feel more alive when we say goodbye.
“Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance. Bad luck, loss, pain—if you make something out of it, then you’ve no longer been bested by these events.” What I love about this is the sense of defiance, that refusal to be subsumed by the terrible thing, which given that we are mere mortals is inevitable.
This. It's always worth cocooning for this process and all that comes from it <3
I remember sitting in the forest, truck wrecked from a mistake moments before, laughing my ass off thinking, I hated this truck anyway.....................embarrassingly hilarious.
Lately, I've been reading sonnets by Shakespeare, and listening to Jim Pearce "the ever present" the melody is so comforting. Making jewelry is personal and emotional, but times I must find my escape to recharge from the stories of my customers. I have to find ways of new inspiration and finding peace in my heart so I don't carry all the weight of so many in pain. I do find time for laughter, but then I feel guilty when I do laugh hard. So, I allow myself to be immersed into love of so many ways, and kindness that's my solitude of grace. Blessings, everyone. 🙏🏼✨️💕
My mom came from humble roots. Immigration. Poverty. I saw her as stoic. Her joy was practical. Near the end of her life I spent three months caring for her 24/7. Nights I slept lightly listening for her in the next room. Every night after she fell into a deep sleep I could hear her. She was laughing. She had no recollection of it when I mentioned it to her during the day. But it was delightful to hear her buried mirth erupt as she slept. Like she was chatting with God. She’s long passed but remembering this makes me smile.
During the pandemic my daughter, Chloe, was going through chemotherapy for terminal brain cancer. She and I would take our dog, Baxter, on car rides, any chance we got. It was a great way to get out of the house and break up the monotony of the days. On one such trip, we took Baxter to pick up a curbside order from our local IKEA. When the large, flat box was placed in the back of our SUV, Baxter decided he wanted to sit on top of it, right in the middle, for the car ride home. We tried to coax him to the front seats, but he stubbornly stayed in place. As we turned corners and started and stopped through rush hour traffic, Baxter slid back and forth across the box, tap dancing his way around and skidding to a halt each time he reached an edge. But he persistently made his way back to the center, each time. Chloe and I started laughing, uncontrollably, at it. It was the most ridiculous and pathetic looking thing ever. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed...more and more...harder and harder...Eventually, I had to pull the car over to the side of the road. Chloe leaned her seat back and curled up, holding her stomach as she shook with laughter. I gripped the steering wheel and curled into it as my stomach tightened with pain from laughing so hard. We both had tears streaking down our cheeks. We laughed...and laughed...and laughed... I can only think of a couple times in my life I've laughed so hard. It felt so good. There we were, in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of chemotherapy, in the face of a terrifying, terminal diagnosis, laughing our behinds off at our ridiculous, stubborn dog.
My family members have always used humor as a way to soothe us through what at times have been horrendous circumstances. Many of us have talked about how, no matter how many years or miles separate us, many of our family members have very similar senses of humor and at times our phone calls are more comedy routines than catch up sessions. We love to laugh. Inevitably, when many of us are around one table, one of us (usually me) will start laughing and we all end up laughing until we cry and cannot stop. I often thought of my father (a man who lived with horrendous pain and eventually committed suicide) as a "Johnny Carson" character. Decades later, life circumstances have calmed and soothed, and from one end of the country to the other, our love for each other and for laughter ties us all together. My own writing has been a way to "wrestle back power" that experiences used to hold over me. I'm looking forward to developing a habit of journaling with you all during 2024.
My late, great dad used to say, “ it’s better to have laughed at all! Than never to have laughed at all! “ …. Maybe you had to be there - it was during a party with good friends and lotsa booze 😏. I mention it because it makes the point that laugh no matter what - even if you feel horrible, the world has gone to hell in a hand basket etc, laughing is free , you have total agency over it and makes you feel free and alive !
I’m so glad, dear Suleika, that you are taking time to yourself to read, write and reflect. I am over the moon excited to hear more about your new book and your upcoming exhibit. I’m right up the road in New Haven and will absolutely make it to experience those beautiful watercolors in person!
Beautiful and so encouraging. Thank you for sharing !
The paradox of finding ways to live our lives joyfully with evidence of our mortality all around us (and sometimes in us) is grist for our creative mills. This TIJ group is like a haven of fellows who are so relatable. I really value the forum and reading everyone's comments.
Many years ago I heard a bang on my living room window. I went outside and found a stunned little bird on the ground. I wrapped it in my blouse, found a shoebox and grabbed a kitchen towel. I wanted to let it recover awhile, so put the box next to my tortoise on her heated floor. It took about 20 minutes until the fluttering started inside the box- it was recovered and ready to fly. I took the box outside and lifted it high under the big oak- hoping it would find a close branch to continue its recovery.
I opened the box and out it flew - right into the swooping grasp of a hawk ! I rescued the bird just to release it to instant death! I was mortified angry bereft weeping. How could my good intentions go so wrong? I realized that the bird had flown into the window while fleeing the hawk in the first place! And what a patient hunter the hawk was- did it know to wait? Did it know the bird would be released and it just waited? Would I have chosen not to rescue the bird if I had known about the hawk? I don't think so. The world and the processes of life and death are so much more complex than I can grasp.
I think about an excerpt from
The Brief for the Defense
by Jack Gilbert:
"If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction, we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world."
So I live in my stubbornness , trying to be true and find joy and sometimes causing more harm than good blundering into professes deeper than I comprehend. ❤️🐝