Stumbled on something about grieving today. That it is bottomless, of course; but more importantly, that it is about being painfully confronted to the reality that will never be the same, hit it as a sparrow hits a transparent window pane, struggle with it and fight it, resent it, hate it, and be exhausted; and eventually, accept it – in peace, I want to hope. Grieving, for me at least, is about recovery, resurrection of a capacity for love, dead with my loved one; the liveliest part of me, the most life-giving, the most overflowing has become distant memory, and that is what feels like being dead.
And this is why I could not grieve in London: there was nothing to hit against, no reality to overcome, no things-without-Ed to make peace with – just brand new, meaningless void of an anonymous existence. I could have gone to the planet Mars, it wouldn't have been different… No wonder I ended up choking. But now real griefworks commence; now my pain has a sparring partner: this city which keeps track of my long forgotten trajectories, this flower shop we loved, this cafe we used to go for a beer. Getting back here did not make this pain less acute – just possible. But at least, I can make some sense of it.
