Grief Season (and what we can learn from fungi)

It’s grief season again.

In my family circle, the final days of the old year and the first days of the new year will forever be marked by profound loss. On January 1st, 2011, my best friend’s niece, Kate, was brutally attacked and mortally wounded, together with her fiance and several of his family members. She died on January 6th, 2 days after her fiance. She was 25. Five of her future family members died with her in that first week of the new year. 

Towards the end of that same year, 2011, my coworker and dear friend, Corey, resigned from his job as my administrative assistant for a mental health agency, left town for an extended cross-country road trip, and jumped off the New River Gorge Bridge (a beautiful and extraordinarily high structure known as a popular suicide spot) in West Virginia on December 29th. I will forever remember the call from his aunt coming into our office, and the photograph of the bridge where he died displayed at his memorial. He was 33.

Flanked by murder and suicide, the transition time between the old and the new year has become heavy and contemplative for me. It’s already a natural time for inward reflection - the darkest days, the longest nights, cold weather and bare trees, the end of the lunar calendar year - and also, winter solstice, daylight slowly beginning to linger again, holiday celebrations - on Dia de los Muertos we honor our dead - and the anticipation of a fresh start into a new revolution around the sun.

In recent years, grief season has extended a bit. This may just be a normal side effect of getting older. Loss has a way of finding you, over and over again. A life-long friend of my husband’s died from cancer on December 15th, 2013, the same day as a young girl from our neighborhood who used to babysit for my daughter, succumbed to the disease. In 2020, my former brother-in-law died by suicide on January 29th, and lung cancer took my mother-in-law on November 29th. 

The truth is, of course, that it’s grief season all year long. Death doesn’t keep a calendar or make appointments. We all experience many losses throughout our life. Sometimes it is a physical death, and sometimes it’s simply the end of something. It still hurts. Grief is not a competition - my loss isn’t bigger or smaller or more or less important than yours. All our losses add up, and they all matter. They continue to shape who we are, because it is true that love and loss are two sides of the same coin. 

So I light a candle in the dark. I remember; I cry; I tell stories; I laugh; I celebrate. I listen to music. A lot. I do this alone and with my fellow humans, because we are all connected, through this mycelium network of grief, love, and loss. Like the mycelium, the awe-inspiring underground web of fungi, with its soft tendrils growing in the dark places, it heals and sustains us, breaks us down and transforms us, nurtured by our tears. 

The word “mycelium” is derived from New Latin and Greek. It means “more than one”.

More than one. That’s us.

Sunday Morning

The sound of rain

Through an open window


And crows

Always crows

Shiny black feathers

Webbed with shimmering droplets

Like liquid diamonds


The hum of city streets

And freeways

Droning quietly

Like a giant amplifier


Shiny black tires

Hissing over wet asphalt


Where do crows go

When it rains?

Crow's Prayer

May we sleep

In the comfort

Of crows’ wings

To be held by soft blackness

To be touched by dark feathers

May we wake up

To the song of the crows

Some say it is not beautiful

But we know better.

Morning Reflections

Is it the light

That is flickering

Or is it

My perception of the light

Is it me

Who is moving

Or is it

My perception of movement

Is this my shadow

Or someone else’s

Where does the light come from

And the movement

And the shadow

Now the flickering has stopped

Instead, a solid beam of light

Where am I

In the absence of movement

In the absence of shadow

In the absence of light

Old loss.

How it is encased in your heart like an ancient seed. How your life grows around it, soft tissue and scars and delicate skin. How it still glows and burns silently in the dark. How it patiently waits for the right moment to resurface. Old loss never lets you down. It will always be there. It keeps your heart soft and pulsing and tender. It holds your hand quietly when you cry. It rocks you slowly to sleep in its heavy lap. Old loss knows you better than you know yourself. It fills you with a pain so deep and so sweet that you won't ever want to be without it. Old loss is the ocean that forms the shores of your soul. Old loss washes away the sharp edges of yourself as you slowly disintegrate into billions of tiny grains. Old loss is the kernel from which all true love sprouts, nourished by the salty water of your tears. True love is rooted in old loss.

In 2020 my world got bigger

 In 2020 my world got bigger. 

That seems counterintuitive, I know. 2020 was all about shrinkage: for many of us, our human connections shrunk down to little squares on computer screens. Our radius of operation got reduced to walks around the block and cautious trips to the grocery store. The old Alcoholics Anonymous mantra “one day at a time” took on a whole lot of significance, even for stone-cold sober folks, as we struggled to accept the reality of not having a clue whatsoever is coming next. We developed a new appreciation, or loathing, for those who share our quarters on a daily basis. We cultivated sourdough and paranoia. We engaged in Zoom yoga (my favorite! love!) and day-drinking.

And yet.

2020 was a year to be reckoned with. It knocked me on my ass. COVID was only part of it. On May 25, 2020, the police killing of George Floyd unleashed a tidal wave of outrage and resistance against long-standing racial injustices that is only (finally) beginning to erode the rotten pillars of our fucked up society. It is incredibly painful and scary, and for a privileged white woman like me, utterly humiliating. I realized that the only way I could honestly call for change was to change myself. A cliche, perhaps; true nonetheless. But how? I had no clue. I started by looking for ways to push myself out of my comfort zone. I began educating myself. I began reading articles and books by people of color who challenged my status quo. I took to the streets of my hometown and marched with our youth and our BIPOC community. I started attending city council and board of supervisors meetings where equity issues and police violence were being discussed. I phone-banked to pass a measure for increased civilian oversight of local policing. I ventured out (mostly virtual, and sometimes in the third dimension) into communities within our community that, embarrassingly, were barely even on my radar before. I collected backpacks for Latinx children in Roseland. I packed boxes for the Sonoma County Black Forum’s food distribution. I delivered warm coats to people on the street through Sonoma County Acts of Kindness. And, earlier in the year, I left the company that employed me for the past 25 years to start over at another organization—one that is coincidentally affording me the opportunity to challenge myself to stand up very publicly for racial justice.

I’m not talking about this to make myself look good. Or maybe I am. That’s another thing: I seem to always be looking over my own shoulder now, questioning my motives and the integrity of my actions. Humility is key. And service. How can I be of service?

I’m talking about this to illustrate how my world got bigger in 2020. This wretched year forced me out of my comfort zone. And I am grateful. I am connecting with people who I probably would never have connected with before. I am engaging in conversations I never even thought I would be a part of. I am using my voice to speak out for something other than my own self interest. I am reading, watching, listening, learning things that shatter my core assumptions about my daily reality and myself. I am learning that I don’t have to be right; I don't have to know it all; I don’t even have to agree with everything. I am challenging myself to shut up and listen. I am challenging myself to use my voice to amplify the voices of others who haven’t been afforded the same platforms as I have.

In the beginning of 2021, my social interactions are still mostly confined to little squares on a computer screen. But in some of those squares, and in conversations online through various channels previously unknown to me, I am talking to people who are blasting my doors of perception wide open. And when I go outside, still prepped with a mask and hand sanitizer, I meet fellow humans with vastly different experiences from mine. And I ask myself every day: how can I be of service?

My world has gotten bigger in 2020. Thank you. 

New Day

 

The sound of rain

Through an open window

A crow’s call

A new day has begun.

For All That Is Lost

For all that is lost

I weep

For those we miss

Today and every day

Like the scent of orange blossoms

Or rain

Carries a memory

Too sweet to be painful

Too sad to make you smile

Just a gentle breeze

Touching your cheek

Like someone you remember

Always.

In memory of Kate Donahue

5/20/85 - 1/6/11