death
November 4, 2009
- I suppose upon your birthday it's fairly common to reflect upon your life...however when the past year's events included such hellish experiences...it's not entirely pleasant to do so... So here I am, it's my birthday in three hours time and all I want is for it to just go the heck away. Not sure why it's bothering me so much to begin with... considering that at this point in my life, birthdays ...
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November 4, 2009
- The time has come, the walrus said, to solve the problem of death. God has been dead for at least a century. Existentialism has come and gone. Beckett ("I can't go on, I must go on"): in his grave (just around the corner, as it turns out). Derrida, who was obsessed by it: gone. Reincarnation: not too many adepts. Behavior therapy: is there any hope there? Can we ...
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November 3, 2009
- The most important thing my Grandmother White taught me—she never spoke in words. If a person had put a glass in front of my grandmother and asked her if it was half-full or half-empty, I think she would've been too preoccupied by the fact that the glass was dirty and would have to be washed to answer the question.To understand what she taught me, it's important to explain who she was and who ...
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October 31, 2009
- Well, it's finally happened and Gladys died yesterday. An event waiting to happen for a long, long time, in my opinion. More shocking to note, possibly, is that all I can feel about it is a mild relief and the thought that I won't have to schedule in my weekly twenty minute silent visit to her any more. Which, I have to say, is more than anything a scathing revelation of my sadly lacking sense of ...
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October 28, 2009
- I was born in LA county in 1960 and feel NO connection there. None. Even the ocean is changed. I do like the salt air smell and the eucalyptus trees. It is like being an adoptee who occasionally visits a biological parent who has both terminal cancer and Alzheimer's. You came from them originally, but there is no mutual recognition on any meaningful level and only sadness and alienation.
I ...
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October 28, 2009
- I don’t see death every day, but I hear it.From where I sit, in my home office overlooking a little Bosphorus bay, the day is punctuated by recess at a large school below. Sometimes through the din I think I hear a high-pitched pain cry echoing in the valley. An intermittent wail. Out on the balcony I listen, some primitive hackle raised. Rarely can I locate its exact source but it comes from ...
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October 27, 2009
October 22, 2009
- I decided to visit my own funeral. I’d given little thought to the plan so, I guess, that’s why it seemed slovenly and lacked the crispness that, for the most part, was characteristic of my life. None of my friends was there but then I remembered they died before me, and recalled my attempt at humor when alive by saying if you want a big funeral, you have to die young. ...
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October 16, 2009
- At the VONA Voices Writing Workshop, I sat with one writer in my political content class and heard the familiar complaint. "I don't feel like I have the time to write." That day she was crowned with a red knit cap, hiding the skinned head beneath. Everyday, a new lid, brilliant in color, a jewel radiating an aura on her face, a little gray from chemo. I knew she was a mother, was ...
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October 10, 2009
- I received the news late Friday night via email that the leader of our local writer's workshop group, Nelson Williams, had passed away. I was stunned and shook up. I had seen him last Friday at our workshop meeting and he seemed happy, in good spirits and in good health. How drastically things can change in such a short time. Nelson was the leader of our local writer's workshop group and an ...
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