Birthdays, Death Days, and Heavy Metal Guitar

Sunday was my 43d birthday, which you may have missed on your calendar because it tends to be obscured by other, more lustrous anniversaries: Mozart's Birthday, the 118th Anniversary of plumbing innovator Thomas Crapper's death, and International Holocaust Remembrance Day. So, despite my obvious personal luminosity, there's a lot of 1/27 competition. My birthday is also …

Continue reading Birthdays, Death Days, and Heavy Metal Guitar

Grief is like an stationary bike, and other obvious metaphors I’ve refused to self-edit.

Between recent knee surgery and the usual holiday/winter sloth, I fell off the workout wagon a little. But in the two weeks before a recent West Coast trip, I exercised almost daily. Not only that, I made ample use of my stationary bike – an investment I feared might collect more real cobwebs than virtual …

Continue reading Grief is like an stationary bike, and other obvious metaphors I’ve refused to self-edit.

The Introvert’s Dilemma (or Nothing Fails Like Prayer Beads)

I like people. Actually being around them can be nice, too, though preferably only one at a time. Maybe a small group if I’m feeling particularly centered. Anything more is likely to result in social anxiety and a night long marathon session of what Nina used to call the Recrimination Circus. It’s the mental place …

Continue reading The Introvert’s Dilemma (or Nothing Fails Like Prayer Beads)

A List of Good Books about Death, Grief, Loss, and Related Issues

It's almost Christmas, so many of you are probably wondering: "what gift can I buy that will devastate my loved ones to the point of tears while simultaneously affirming their basic humanity?" Right? Well, look no further: I’m building a little bibliography / reading list on grief, loss, mortality, terminal illness, and the like. It's …

Continue reading A List of Good Books about Death, Grief, Loss, and Related Issues

The Abyss

Sometimes when I’m trying to get my bearings it helps to borrow a specific structure or image. There’s the Stages of Grief, bequeathed on us for better or ill by Kubler-Ross, by which we can gauge our progress and feel badly about our failure to achieve proper staging; or if you’re more visual than schematic, …

Continue reading The Abyss