Tag: Turpentine

At Home with Grief: Learning to Laugh through My Tears

elaine gantz wrightLeave a comment

I am a synchronicity junkie. And today’s is powerful.

I’ve been editing this post on the potency of everyday grief—how it lurks and hides in the nooks and crannies of our ordinary lives—in our homes and hearths.

And this morning, the Facebook algorithm gods sent me a wink. The estate sale for my family home of almost 50 years happened on this day ten years ago after the deaths of my parents. Perhaps, it’s a reminder that home stays with us, always and no matter what.

So, where does grief live?

I think it’s in me and with me all the time—not in the old books, porcelain teacups, and big plastic bottles of glitter my mom collected. Grief is a part of my connective tissue and a part of all humans who love fiercely. I will never stop missing my late son Elliot. Sadness and melancholy are steely threads that entangle every fiber of my being—permanent strands of sorrow. About my other significant losses, well, I feel sad, of course, but Elliot is different. I gave him life. And as Rev. Dr. Fran Shelton said to me last night, he gave me life. His death is still unfathomable—almost five years later. 

When I ask grief where it lives, it quips: “Well, Elaine, wherever the f$#& I please, including every cell in your aging body.” Grief is a snide little cuss. However, if I sit with it a bit and get curious, I understand. In fact, grief’s sass makes me giggle, as it reminds me of a particularly excruciating moment from my youth. I attended St. Michael and All Angels Church Day School through sixth grade. We went to chapel every morning with white-lace doilies Bobby pinned to our tousled locks, because women, even young girls, were not allowed to enter a sacred sanctuary with bare heads back then. At least, that has changed. The boys never wore doilies.

One first-grade morning, we had just completed a bonus verse of God is Working His Purpose Out, one of my fave hymns, and Father Comegys, an affable guy with big black-framed glasses, had begun leading us in a sweet prayer ritual that involved gesturing to different parts of our bodies. “Jesus is in my head; Jesus is in my heart. . .Jesus is in my right arm, my left arm, and so on” . . . Then suddenly, I felt compelled to shriek with great concern:

“Oh no, I’m getting food all over Jesus.”

There were snickers, pointing fingers, hisses, and shushing—followed by a swift grab of my wrist and brisk trot down the hall to the head priest’s office, the first of several. Humiliation is its own fresh kind of hell in church, but it pales in the hierarchy of grief. Just gotta say.

Anyway, the pain of losing my brilliant and complicated 26-year-old son Elliot Everett Wright far exceeds all the other losses and humiliations in my life combined, but I have discovered it also acts as a kind of emotional accelerant like the flammable residue CSI might detect in the ashes after a horrific fire.

It has the power to incinerate.

Profound grief is like that—a virulent, unstable chemical compound that can ignite even innocuous psychological debris in a heartbeat. The spontaneous combustion of new griefs inflaming ancient wounds makes carrying the most unbearable of all losses even more precarious. And vice versa. I contend the fire metaphor is even more visceral than the wave concept.

And while we are talking about incendiary substances, I am reminded of the pungent odor of turpentine spirits that would hang in the air and seep into every surface of our house growing up. My mother, Ann Cushing Gantz, an exquisitely prolific artist who was ferociously frustrated by the fickle art world, liked to repurpose those dark brown B&M baked bean jars, the ones with the subtle honeycomb design embossed in the glass, to soak her paint-caked brushes.

The small, amber containers covered every table, every shelf, and ledge in her cluttered studio over the garage—messy and mesmerizing, like an overgrown garden of potted pigment. I can’t catch a whiff of that harsh bittersweet aroma without thinking of my mother—stringent at times, but uniquely unforgettable. Anything can trigger a grief flame, even years later. And every loss is its own.

Yes, my grief often rants and shouts at me—but sometimes, it’s just a persistent, quiet whisper underneath everything that happens. It’s an inside job to deal with—getting grounded in the now and establishing healthy techniques to soothe my frayed nervous system. I am no longer that frightened little girl who grew up in an atmosphere of confusion and secrets, so I need to stop trying so hard to fix things that aren’t mine to fix. That is where I need to live.

Now, I’m feeling like Masha from Chekhov’s The Three Sisters:

In Act One, Masha says, “I’ve got the blues today, I’m feeling glum, so don’t you mind what I say [laughing through her tears]. We’ll talk some other time . . .”

She might be on to something. Laughing through her tears. Acknowledging the despair but finding a way to laugh. The authorities at The Atlantic concur. Expressing seemingly incongruent emotions can actually help moderate intense feelings—tears of joy, smiles of sadness, etc.

In the end, everything is bittersweet.

Well, Masha, I’m going with that . . . laughing through my tears, and we’ll talk some other time. And check out Fran Shelton’s book for this week’s featured spiritual practice that will help you navigate the most stubborn of your bittersweet memories—whether in your heart or your home.

Find solace in The Spirituality of Grief.

Imitating Art: Between the Method and the Madness

elaine gantz wrightLeave a comment

“Why do you wear black all the time?” Medvedenko asks.

“I’m in mourning for my life, I’m unhappy,” replies Masha.

These familiar lines that open “The Seagull” by Anton Chekhov may feel a little stiff and melodramatic out of context, but there is truth in them. This classic nineteenth century drama set on a Russian country estate explores universal themes that transcend time and place, such as love, fame and regret. So, the fact I resonate with Masha’s malaise is not surprising. I have always adored Chekhov. I remember recreating many iconic moments during my thespian days at Northwestern—cavorting through waist-high snow in the bitter sub-zero cold.

“This is just so Chekhovian!” we’d announce between the method and the madness.

It’s been decades since then, but the poignant words possess a different kind of relevance today. Mourning is draining. And most days, I am merely surviving. That said, I know that mere survival is not sustainable. It’s not living, but I think I’ve lived there most of my life. Gratefully, there have been countless glimmers of joy and grace along the way, but I think it’s time to recalibrate—to find new and durable meaning, since the worst of all nightmares has happened.

Is that what my grief is trying to tell me?

When I ask grief that question outright, the short answer is this: “Well, Elaine, this totally sucks, and you are completely screwed.” However, if I sit with it a bit and get curious, I discover some nuances and layers. Though the pain of losing my brilliant and complicated 26-year-old son Elliot Everett Wright far exceeds all other losses in my life combined,  I find it also acts as a kind of an accelerant, like a flammable substance CSI might detect in the ashes after a horrific fire. Grief is a ubiquitous, unstable chemical compound that can ignite seemingly innocuous psychological debris in a heartbeat. The spontaneous combustion of new griefs inflaming ancient wounds makes carrying the most unbearable of all losses even more painful.

And while we are pondering incendiary substances, I am reminded of the potent odor of turpentine spirits that would hang in the air and seep into every surface of our suburban house growing up. My mother, Ann Cushing Gantz, a passionate artist who was profoundly frustrated by the fickle art world, liked to repurpose B&M Baked Bean jars to soak her paint-caked brushes. The small, amber-brown containers covered every table, every shelf and ledge in her cluttered studio over the garage—messy and mesmerizing, like an overgrown garden of potted pigment. I can’t think of my mother without catching a whiff of that bittersweet aroma—stringent at times, but strangely appealing. Anything can trigger a grief pang, even years later. And every loss is its own.

Like putting out fire with gasoline, my efforts to quell grief’s urgency simply don’t work very well. And it’s hard to separate it from its grave context. At first, I thought Elliot’s loss had its own private room in my broken heart, but I think compartmentalizing it increases the internal friction. I wish I could find a way to disengage it from the rest of the root system. I don’t want to go under like someone hanging on to a bag of rocks in the middle of a pit of quicksand. 

My grief is shouting at me—but so is everything else. All the experts say I need to feel the ache of this unimaginable loss to find a way to carry it, along with the rest of the baggage I seem to have brought to this place of fresh awareness. I will never reverse the agony of losing my precious Elliot and the relationship we might have had, but one day, I may be able to soften the sharpness of his absence—if I create a space for forgiveness and empathy for myself and the other players in my drama.

“Forgive to live,” Grief says. “But never forget.”

 I guess I’m just not sure what to do next.  

“At this rate, it may combust into a blaze you cannot extinguish,” Grief warns.

It’s an inside job, as I say so often—getting grounded in the now and establishing healthy techniques to soothe my fractured nervous system. I am no longer that frightened little girl who grew up in an atmosphere of confusion, resentment and secrets. So I need to stop trying so hard to fix things that aren’t mine to fix. It’s all bigger than I can ever imagine—a mystery beyond naming. That is where I need to live.

So now, I’m remembering a different Masha from another Chekhov play:

This Masha says, “I’ll go. . . . I’ve got the blues today, I’m feeling glum, so don’t you mind what I say [laughing through her tears]. We’ll talk some other time . . .”

Perhaps, I’ll adopt the countenance of  this Masha—from Act I of “The Three Sisters.” Laughing through her tears. Acknowledging the hurt but finding a way to laugh. She might be on to something. Recently, I read an article recently in The Atlantic that said the expression of seemingly incongruent emotions can actually help moderate intense feelings—tears of joy, smiles of sadness, etc.

Well, Masha, for now, I’m going with that . . . laughing through my tears, and we’ll talk some other time, my dear.