The Merits of Facebook

I have made yet another leap toward the technological sphere: I created a group on Facebook. Let me say first that I adore FB, privacy issues aside. I have re-connected with friends from long ago; established new friendships with people whom I have since met in person, and use it as a daily connection with local friends. Funnily enough, I really enjoy being "Friends" with many of my students; they are young adults, some now alums with kids, current doctoral students, all over the place. 

Back to my creating a Facebook group. Those of you who read this blog know I am reading The Year of Magical Thinking, a book suggested to me by a couple of friends (who don't know each other).  My friend SPants suggested this to me early on in my grief, or perhaps even before my father passed away. My friend S2 just recently suggested this title. I think it was she who mentioned she'd love to read it again and talk about it. This got me thinking of my eclectic circle of friends in various geographical locations yet all on Facebook...how cool would it be to have a book club with these extraordinary friends, centered on a book with a topic this specific? And so I asked a few questions here and there, and figured out how to do just this. And voila: The Facebook Group: The Year of Magical Thinking was born.  It's dedicated to the reading and discussion of Joan Didion's book focusing on her experience surrounding the death of her husband. It's really a memoir of a very particular time in her life. Well, I think everyone invited has joined and is in the process of securing their copies.  Until everyone gets up and rolling, I would like to start talking about the book's impact on me HERE.  The parallels are kind of scary; it helps to read the horror I am experiencing has been survived by someone else.

To be very nerdy--because that's who I am--Ms. Didion writes "people who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen the same looks on their own faces.." (p 75)  This reminds me specifically of a series of "self portraits" I took while on the road after my father's death.  A (facebook) friend made a cheeky comment under one of them: "Are we becoming a little too fond of one's own face as subject?"  My response: "I'm trying to see if the sadness has left my eyes yet." This was three months after my father had passed away, and NO: the sadness had neither left my eyes nor my face.  Ms Didion goes on to talk about how she felt invisible,  "incorporeal" (p 76); I felt like a jelly fish, a clear jelly fish floating around...somewhere....but not knowing where.

I am almost six months out, and these images, fears, are just starting to fade from my reality. I can eat one meal a day and feel full, I generally know where I am in space, and there are moments one can see joy in my face. It doesn't stick yet, but I'm not hurrying to get over the death of my dad. All of the things I've saved of his are still in my room. I am still not sleeping there. Yet.

As horrifying as Joan Didion's account of her experience is, it is ultimately comforting in a way no other books on death have been.  I am reading her book very, very slowly. Normally a voracious reader, I want to ingest every word, every description I encounter in this most remarkable book. I've probably said things similar to this in previous (Ambien CR) posts.

It's been a quiet weekend here so far. I rely on it to keep a sense of equilibrium. Loud noises, constant talking wear me out. I really snapped at K when he came home from his gig tonight. He started talking non-stop about random, stream of consciousness  things from the moment he walked in the door. After about 45 minutes of this, I lost it and told him to SHUT UP, HONEY!  I couldn't take it.

I need a lot of time alone each day right now.   I don't obsess or worry during this alone time.   I am being.  Calm, quiet, authentic, meditative. All good things. If there are some sadnesses that need expression, than I have the time and mental place to express them. I am honoring myself and my grief in this way.  (I could have asked K  a second or third time before shouting at him. I'd asked him twice before, and didn't cut it out.) He has been surprisingly insensitive during  this process. That's why I get short tempered. Hello: I. need. my. quiet. processing. time. Dammit. How many times must I gently request his sensitivity to this?

Back to Didion's book, I received some wonderful insight about the extremely personal affects of shoes. They were worn often by the one we loved; their foot shapes are pushed into the leather. These were the hardest things to give away for me, and I wept openly  when putting Dad's shoes into the bags going to donation.  Joan Didion's psyche explained it thusly: "If I gave away his shoes, how could he come back?"
Hmmm. This makes sense to me. In the temporary mental disorder our brain becomes, it makes sense that we would want to keep the things he would need when he returned. I keep his watch on my bedstand. I check it every morning and every night.  I wonder how I'll feel when the battery dies. I hope not like another death; it's just a battery, but it's a battery HE put in. That makes it more important somehow.

Well, I wanted to celebrate my little victory in the world a begin a preliminary reaction to sections in Didion's book. I can't wait for my friends to all be ready; I'm sure we'll be on different trajectories and come from different angles...this will make it extraordinary discussion. It will help me process (hooray), because my local friends aren't so into that. they seem to get uncomfortable if ever i mention my father, as if all the air is sucked out of the room. Their deal, not mine.  Well, good night, my friends, and I look forward to our discussions/reviews of things you are reading in The Year of Magical Thinking.
Buona notte. baci ed abracci a tutti