ritual shut down--more borderline whining
This is a lovely time of year. Yup. The trees! The occasionally bright blue sky!
However it is also my inner shut-down period. If I was part of an organized religion, no doubt I'd have a ritual. Yahrzeit. Put stones on graves, or even have graves to visit. Instead I slightly withdraw when life's not in my face, a la kids. They don't put up with this moping crap, not for a moment.
Once you hit a certain age, there are bound to be ghosts. A lot of people I loved chose this time of year to die. This has become significant for some reason. I don't get it, but this is when I notice them most.
Took me a while to figure this out. I thought, hmm, seasonal affective disorder? but no, because I'm just fine once the holidays are out of our hair. I'm haunted now and not later. (Heh, I bet I'm asking for trouble with that line.)
Maybe if I could figure out a ritual for Day of the dead/Toter Tag/día de los muertos I'd do better--get it out of my system faster.
My mother created a ritual. She visited Medgar Evers's grave every year at Thanksgiving and brought him flowers. Her custom started the year JFK was assassinated.
She went to pay her respects to the dead president and saw he had plenty of attention. Long lines snaking past his grave. So she went looking for someone who didn't get the attention he deserved (this is Arlington National so we are talking mostly men) and found Mr. Evers.
The last time I went with her, more than thirty Thanksgivings later, she couldn't walk any more. Very hard to negotiate that hillside in a wheelchair. So I left her on the walkway, pretended I knew where his grave was and deposited the flowers at a random grave. Since she was also fairly gaga at that point, she didn't seem to notice that I'd missed Mr. Evers.
Hey, it was cold and starting to rain. And, I reasoned, Mr. Evers wouldn't mind. By then I think I understood he was my mother's stand in for all of her people who'd died. **
That year some other dead soldier got the flowers that were supposed to go to Medgar Evers that were supposed to go to JFK that were actually supposed to go to my mother's dead.
Maybe this year I could go pull out dead tomato plants and call it a ritual. Something to appease my ghosts so I can halt the shut-down and get back to life and, of course, blog-hopping.
_____________________________
**She never visited her family's graves--they are all in one of those huge graveyards, more like grave cities--outside New York City. You can never hold your breath driving past them or you'd suffocate and end up joining the other occupants.
However it is also my inner shut-down period. If I was part of an organized religion, no doubt I'd have a ritual. Yahrzeit. Put stones on graves, or even have graves to visit. Instead I slightly withdraw when life's not in my face, a la kids. They don't put up with this moping crap, not for a moment.
Once you hit a certain age, there are bound to be ghosts. A lot of people I loved chose this time of year to die. This has become significant for some reason. I don't get it, but this is when I notice them most.
Took me a while to figure this out. I thought, hmm, seasonal affective disorder? but no, because I'm just fine once the holidays are out of our hair. I'm haunted now and not later. (Heh, I bet I'm asking for trouble with that line.)
Maybe if I could figure out a ritual for Day of the dead/Toter Tag/día de los muertos I'd do better--get it out of my system faster.
My mother created a ritual. She visited Medgar Evers's grave every year at Thanksgiving and brought him flowers. Her custom started the year JFK was assassinated.
She went to pay her respects to the dead president and saw he had plenty of attention. Long lines snaking past his grave. So she went looking for someone who didn't get the attention he deserved (this is Arlington National so we are talking mostly men) and found Mr. Evers.
The last time I went with her, more than thirty Thanksgivings later, she couldn't walk any more. Very hard to negotiate that hillside in a wheelchair. So I left her on the walkway, pretended I knew where his grave was and deposited the flowers at a random grave. Since she was also fairly gaga at that point, she didn't seem to notice that I'd missed Mr. Evers.
Hey, it was cold and starting to rain. And, I reasoned, Mr. Evers wouldn't mind. By then I think I understood he was my mother's stand in for all of her people who'd died. **
That year some other dead soldier got the flowers that were supposed to go to Medgar Evers that were supposed to go to JFK that were actually supposed to go to my mother's dead.
Maybe this year I could go pull out dead tomato plants and call it a ritual. Something to appease my ghosts so I can halt the shut-down and get back to life and, of course, blog-hopping.
_____________________________
**She never visited her family's graves--they are all in one of those huge graveyards, more like grave cities--outside New York City. You can never hold your breath driving past them or you'd suffocate and end up joining the other occupants.
Every year I insist that I'm over mourning for my grandmother and aunt on Thanksgiving, and every year I feel guilty for having "ruined" another holiday by mourning them once again.
ReplyDeleteI feel sad in the Fall too.
But I still miss the trees changing color.
I used to love the Fall....I still do, in many ways. But lately, I'm feeling more of a sense of loss; a ghost-like emptiness.
ReplyDeleteReally haven't a clue where it's coming from, unless it's my own version of a mid-life crisis or some such nonsense.
But I do understand, Kate. For what it's worth, I think your mother's ritual is very touching. There are so many who have passed on -- or who live on in care facilities -- who are basically forgotten souls. Her tributer could not have gone unnoticed.
((((HUGS)))))
((((hugs right back at you, gator))))
ReplyDelete