The Syntax of Sadness: A Love Letter of Loss

Read through a found treasure yesterday, Alana Wilcox's A Grammar of Endings, which had called to me from the shelves of my favorite used book store back home last weekend. The reason it spoke to me initially was because of the premise -- a woman trying to sort through the pain and grief of her breakup attempts to write one final letter to her departed, for closure, correction, forgiveness, forgetfulness. The letter proves elusive, words failing to encapsulate the scope of her loss, the depth of her sorrow, the power of her agony.

And so the novel -- which purports to be fictional, but reads as viscerally and raw as leafing through someone's journal -- progresses as she works through the various iterations and attending emotions. Wilcox uses a medical condition of absence to start each chapter -- avulsion, alethia, anaphia -- each representative of the emotional impairment being grappled with within. Avulsion, a tearing away or forcible separation; alethia, an inability to forget past events; anaphia, the absence of the sense of touch. It's an incredibly potent construct, and the difficulties the narrator has surmounting them rang true, especially as her frustrations and desperation to do so mount:

"I will take one word from each book here that reminds me of you, I will cut them out with scissors and drop them into a white envelope. You will open it and they will fall onto your desk, landing assuredly into the perfect sentence."

"I would love you like a book. Symmetrical, unpredictable. Pages pressed flat together, words deep and fleshy through the thickness. Letters immutable and sequential; I would love you with the certainty of the other side of the leaf. Indelible as ink. Irrevocable as binding, as reading. The strictness of page numbers, the gentle sound of a page turning. I would assemble the indices of every book ever written and bind them together and this would be my letter to you."

"Perhaps I can sing you this letter, notes clear and long in place of my discordant words. The sincerity of perfect harmony; the impermanence of song...I open my mouth and begin to sing to you, and in the instant between the hard push of breath and the sound of the first note there are all the ways I tried to love you and all the ways I tried to forget you, and then there would be music. True and loud and clear...some perfect note that is everything I have ever wanted to tell you...And when I finish singing this to you, it would be over. There would be no trace of it. My love, my grief, my regret would have dissipated with the last echoes of my song. There would be nothing to reread on a sad rainy afternoon, no record of its success or failure, nothing to touch. There would only be the memory in my lungs of the breath that held you, and some quiet melody that might haunt me in my deepest sleep."

Wilcox wields these attempts with the lethal precision of a brain surgeon and intersperses them with love letters of other famous writers -- John Keats, Henry Miller -- which only compounds the lesson: there is no simple end to this. Your situation is not unique, yet history and the experiences of others cannot help. You seek only to write a letter, yet renowned authors will provide no inspiration. You bear the symptoms of emotional and physical impairment, yet identifying the medical corollary will offer you no cure.

You are in this, and it is yours alone. There is no succor, no evasion, no quarter.

It's a devastating read, particularly for someone in my situation (so close as it is to hers), but well worth the anguish. I plowed through it in one sitting, teary-eyed and injured in my favorite little roundabout yesterday, torn open time and again by her self-awareness and honesty:

On recovery: "Going on a date with him, with anyone, would mean that this grief is not insurmountable and is weaker than I thought, or that I am stronger, or that I loved [him(her)] less than I thought. It would mean I was getting on with my life, as though life were something independent of this love and this grief.

On seeing them again, as ordinary strangers: "How I will have to talk to you as if you were just anybody else, how I will have to push the sound of your sobs from my mind if I am not to cry myself. How I will have to pretend not to know everything about you; how I will have to stop myself from touching you without even thinking about it... How the divergence of our lives will be reflected in your eyes.

On memories fading and the fear of moving on: "I was trying to visualize your legs but I could only see them like a photograph, textureless and unreal. This failure of memory disturbs me. It suggests that I didn't love you well enough to remember, or that it is so important to me that I have no choice but to forget...I have stopped saying your name aloud. Sometimes I try to use it but when I reach for it I can't find it, because there can't be one word that is you. And sometimes it comes up to my lips and I seal them tight to keep it from escaping. As though there were some finite amount of the sound of you, that every time I speak your name I lose a little more of you.

Like I said, a devastating read, but a beautiful one as well. For we've all been there before, to varying degrees and frequencies, and while it may reopen some old wounds ("you, always you, only where I never expect to find you;" "gestures like one-way streets") it may help provide clarity -- and in time, closure -- too. A great read.

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Two quick musical additions to the arsenal from albums that have been getting a lot of play lately. First is from Adam Arcuragi, a Philly-based folkie whose songs are of my usual fixations, love, loss, and overlooked beauty, all wrapped in warm acoustic guitar. He's only got two albums under his belt, including this year's I Am Joy, but his first one has been the one on repeat of late, 2006's self-titled debut. Check out this one slice of prettiness, emblematic of all its neighbors, "1981."



The second one comes from the debut album of The xx, a band of London high schoolers that will wow you with its simplicity. With its boy-girl vocals, electro-drums, and simple new wave guitar parts, it sounds like a mix of Interpol and Stars, and is a great album of mood music. There's miles of open spaces here, with the hushed vocals and chilly guitar riffs giving it a cool, intimate feel, like uttered confessionals in the back a speeding car. Check out "Islands" from the self-titled debut:



Until next time, mi amici...

A Fear of Falling Down

I was reading the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior on the plane yesterday and found the chapter on fear-based decision making particularly apropos, considering my recent experience. It lays out several examples for how subtly and thoroughly fear of losing can affect our behavior -- from people who hold onto falling stocks until they're totally worthless, rather than sell early and take a smaller loss, to people who sign up for flat-rate calling plans they never use to their maximum, rather than cheaper pay-as-you-go plans. The fear of a loss is so compelling it causes us to overreact in the opposite direction and act irrationally.

The authors write, "We experience the pain associated with a loss much more vividly than we do the joy of experiencing a gain... and the more meaningful a potential loss is, the more loss averse we become." Once we get a sense of which direction things are trending, or are forced to make a decision that factors in a possible negative outcome, our minds invariably chase that path to the worst case scenario and, once there, have a very difficult time putting things back in their proper perspective.

You see the stock you paid $50 for has dropped to $47 and don't sell because you don't want to lose the $3 -- money that's already spent and realistically has no bearing on whether you should sell or not. The loss could be due to fraud allegations; a tanking market; lack of confidence with a newly appointed CEO -- all things that could signal an impending further decline that would warrant your cutting losses and selling now. But we don't. $3 becomes $5 becomes $15 becomes $50, because all we can see is how much we've lost relative to where we started.

The same thing happens with the calling plans -- once we see that phone calls over our allotted minutes cost $2.50 a minute we overreact and start envisioning ourselves talking on the phone for hours each night, edging closer and closer to our limit and then having to pay an exorbitant fee, even if realistically we only use our phone to text and call home once a week. The fear of a loss gets us to act irrationally, and even when it's brought to our attention it's a hard thing to stop. [Think about this as you're stuck in traffic tonight and about to tear off on some roundabout path home with the hopes that it'll be faster, rather than stay on the path you know to be shorter...]

And nowhere is this fear more pernicious (and potentially damaging) than in relationships. It causes us to read into things we shouldn't -- "he just smiled at that waitress, I wonder if he thinks she's pretty. I wonder if he wants to sleep with her. I wonder if he's slept with other people while we've been going out. I wonder how many people he's slept with while we've been going out. I wonder what else he's been lying to me about." It's a slippery slope that causes arguments and feelings that cloud rational decision-making and forces you to miss things that seem obvious to everyone else.

And unfortunately in my case it causes people to walk away from a two-year relationship because they panic over a string of lousy circumstances beyond our control -- we didn't have jobs but then we got jobs but then we lost them at the last minute due to irreversible clerical errors and had to go back to our previously unsatisfying old ones in the town we just left a thousand miles away. We weren't making much money during this time and one of us was depleting their savings and then almost out of money and then totally out of money and then stressed about having to take money from the other one, even though that person saved more for this exact reason, if it came to that, and thus didn't care. This piled stress upon doubt and led to poor self-confidence in the individual, which when picked up by the other person and unable to be repaired by them led to doubt and stress about the relationship, which led to more frustration and arguing than in previous times, which became an undeniable sign that we were not meant for each other, had never been meant for each other, had always been like this, and things would always be like this, so the only smart thing to do was leave.

This teleology of negativity obscures all other factors that would seem to really matter when considering that decision -- do you still love this person; do you miss them now that they're gone; do you think about them enough to still do nice things for them (bake them cookies, for example), despite saying you don't want them in your life? Is there a possibility you're letting the power of the negative things that happened obscure both their proper context and the positive things that acted as their counterbalance, making a rash decision as a result? Are you letting your fears get the best of you and are you embarrassed for having done so?

The fact that someone dreamed about my death and was so overwhelmed by that thought they woke up bawling would seem significant to me, especially coupled with the answers to the questions above (yes to all, according to the source). Yet knowing you're acting irrationally and subsequently changing your behavior is no easier in love than in getting yourself to sell that tanking stock. Walking away from those feelings, that connection, and that shared history for fear of hitting more hard times or arguing again makes no more sense than hanging onto that stock because you've already lost so much of what you originally paid. It's not impossible -- think how technically simple it is to sell that dog or change that calling plan -- it's just mentally and emotionally challenging. Being able to tamp down that fear -- we're fighting now more than ever; that has to be significant, right? -- and not let it sway your decision-making or sully the big picture is the hard part.

How do you convince someone that a love that survives a firestorm of lousy circumstances -- despite logic, luck, or perceived merit -- is worth saving, or at least trying to, if you both agree it's intact? That bad stuff happens all the time -- no matter how diligently we try to avoid it -- and our choices are to either fixate on it and get tripped up by the fact that it shouldn't have happened, this isn't fair; or we can learn from it, forgive the mistakes we make as we fumble at trying to deal with it, and not let it devour the good stuff that still lives nearby.

It's all a matter of seeing the forest for the trees, as the saying goes. The authors write, "when things go wrong we can either apply a short-term Band-Aid solution or remember that in the grand scheme of things it's only a minor misstep. Having a long-term plan -- and not casting it aside -- is the key to dealing with our fear of loss." And that's the view I've tried to take through all this, but unfortunately the lesson I'm learning is if the other person isn't able/willing/ready to do that too, it's not going to work.

It's as if one of you is trying to buy a home, focusing on where the kids' rooms will be and how much space the dog will have to run in the backyard and where the tomato plants and basil will go and how the sunlight will hit you in bed on Sunday mornings, while the other person is just buying a house, so only sees the roof that needs fixing and the cracks in the pavement and the leaky faucets and old water heater that's probably going to explode. If all you're looking for is bad stuff and bullies, that's all you're going to see; if you look at the whole picture, though, you might see that bully is outnumbered and the playground is full of happy kids. That doesn't ignore the fact the bully exists and could come up and beat you senseless one day, it just means your fear of that possibility doesn't overwhelm you and get treated as a certainty.

Yet until the other person's willing to trust that reality and stop themselves from acting irrationally, there's not much you can do. The stock broker's advice will continue falling on deaf ears and you'll keep your flat-rate calling plan just in case you decide to start talking like a teen and living on the phone. And if you're me, you will continue to hear parallels to your life in every song lyric and poignance in every classic film. You'll find guidance in books of every flavor (obviously), mine disparate past experiences for answers, and write love poems that will never get read by the intended audience. You'll keep thinking about how silly this all is and how quickly it could be repaired.

The people that knew you together will continue to scratch their heads and say ridiculous things like they thought you were "inspirational" or "the truest vision of mutual love" they'd ever seen. You'll go to weddings and get caught up in all the expressions of true love and you'll miss sharing it -- and directing it towards -- the love of your life. Not a day will go by where you don't hope till you ache that today's the day she comes around; that today's the day where all the dots connect and that person you fell in love with -- the heart-stopping beauty of humor and steel -- comes back once and for all.

You wait. You wait for the click and hope it's not long in coming. But you know it's out of your hands. Because at the end of the day, if the fear of falling down trumps the fear of doing nothing, letting slip past what could be a mistake you'll regret forever, there's not much you can do. If they believe loving someone only matters when things are good -- when the only time it really matters is when times are tough, when everyone else has abandoned you, and so has your confidence -- then there isn't anything to say.

Love isn't a matter of convenience, it's a matter of calamity -- because if you can count on it then, that's all that matters. It shows what you have is more precious and durable than a diamond, not the romantic equivalent of costume jewelry. If you have that, you need never worry again. Otherwise what you've got is no more valuable than shares of some worthless tech stock or a thousand minute calling plan.

Until next time, my friends...

-RdS

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Some more songs from the aforementioned healing process and the endless parallels to my life in song. They're pretty self-explanatory (though you probably think they always are, so why don't I just shut up, right?):

To:



From:



Forever

Sunshine in the Swamp (Again)

Well for those of you who know me, you know that I'm back in the district, an incredible year of tumult, heartbreak, last minute defeats and painfully acquired lessons behind me -- the most I've ever endured, which is no insignificant statement knowing my history. And while the wounds are too fresh and deep to detail here, allow the fact that I had to leave everything behind in Chicago to return to much the same in DC -- with one major (and I would claim the most important) piece changed -- to suffice as explanation for now.

But as I regroup and reassess, trying to figure out what's salvageable and what's damaged beyond repair, I wanted to come out of hiding to offer these two songs from albums I've been wearing out lately as illustrative tokens from my reflection. The first represents my relentless hope and optimism -- that despite the pain and fire of the last eight months, the things I felt were unassailable truths will still be found intact once the ashes have settled. It's me at my most irrational -- some would say simply foolish -- but the heart follows its own logic and needs only make sense once.

The song is from The Features, a nifty little band from Tennessee I caught opening for the Kings last month, which speaks to all the above -- big heart, big hooks, all buried in a big hopeful singalong. The album mixes soaring choruses with quiet-loud Gypsy flourishes to great effect, but none more so than this one. Check out "Lions" off the band's latest album, "Some Kind of Salvation:"




The second offering speaks to my more rational side, the one that's heard everything that's been said and questions whether love really is enough; whether putting someone else first and not more vigilantly protecting your own interests is an inevitable precursor to relationship failure. It's the clear-eyed, cerebral contrast to the dewy-eyed romantic above -- and despite the symmetry of their end result (me bruised on the ground like an overripe peach) the two are in direct opposition most days.

The song's from the Avett Brothers, a Carolinian trio whose big label debut is full of fantastic songs -- simple, heartbreaking lyrics and beautiful melodies, all wrapped in the warm embrace of banjo, piano, and acoustic folk. "January Wedding," "And It Spread," and "Kick Drum Heart" are all undeniable winners, but none surpass the title track, "I and Love and You." It captures the emotional back and forth I've been going through lately, switching from the romantic optimism above to gutshot, defeated realism as the brothers switch verses. By the time they get to the chorus -- the title of the song and the album -- it seems like she's singing directly to me and the latter part comes crashing home like a sledgehammer to the stomach. Beautiful, bracing stuff, even with the emotional toll it exacts. Here's the video, and check out the entire album here, streaming free on the band's website:



Well, I'm off to resume reflecting (and unpacking), an act whose soundtrack seems to be an endless repetition of Bon Iver's question at the end of "The Wolves (Act I & II)" -- what might have been lost...

Until next time, my friends.