PLANKING

I fear I could end up in the medical detective section of the New Yorker as the woman who became mysteriously stiff as a board. Probably in Victorian times, they had a name for it, a certain type of hysteria perhaps. Everyday it seems as though a new part of my body rails against movement, as if in protest. Today it was my tongue. It was hard to talk. Yesterday, my hips. My neck and back have been almost completely solid for months. After hearing my body woes for several sessions, my therapist said the more she thinks about it, she suspects the stiffening is grief-related. Try Grief yoga, she said and, Is there anything you feel sad about? 

 I don't know, I said, as tears streamed down my face.

Well, there IS that picture of a murdered elephant kneeling forward on his knees with two maniacal hunters standing op top of him with their guns in the air posing for the camera that I saw on Facebook a couple days ago while innocently scrolling, if there is such a thing. Unfortunately, that elephant was part of a family a clan and they probably miss him like crazy, along with wondering who is next among them. Whoever posted that photograph, thanks so much for ruining my brain for the rest of my life. That image keeps flashing in front of me. How does one even process that?

How do I process the article I read this week about the Asian women and a man who lost their lives during one of the latest mass shootings in Atlanta? One Ms Feng, who came to American from from China several years ago, died from a gunshot wound and there was no oner to claim her body. Another Korean woman,died that day. She was a divorced Army-wife who worked in one of the spas. Her story is sad: she gave up custody of her two children when her marriage ended because she knew she could never financially provide for them as well as their father. She so looked forward to the days she got to spend with her children, preparing Korean food for them to eat, teaching them Korean songs and sharing with them her Buddhist practice. She lived alone and had few friends when she died. And then there was another Korean woman who came to this country with hope but ended up struggling to survive. She worked in a spa, - was 70 years old and still working out of necessity - and after many lonely years, found love with a Korean man 30 years younger who was also lonely as hell. They got married and they died together that day. Heartbreaking, to say the very least. I have read that article numerous time and tear up even thinking about it.

Or maybe I am sad because innocent old Asian women are getting beaten up on the streets. And black men and women killed by cops for no reason. Some have been found hanging from trees. Justice is not part of their privilege.

Or maybe it was hearing recently about the overfishing of our oceans, how they are practically wiped out of fish from deep sea trawling. That dolphin-safe tuna means they only kill one dolphin per 6 tuna. That most of the plastic in the sea is from the fishing industry, not from drinking straws. (However, we picked up two big armfuls of plastic off the beach a couple weeks ago, mostly plastic caps and soda bottles, so I don't know who it is proper to blame.) The dead whales with a bellies full of plastic is the fault of the human race. I can tell you that much. They had families too.

Or there was the loss of a dear friend to cancer a couple months ago, leaving behind her two young children. 

And then there was my little brother who died of a phentanyl overdose alone in his apartment and no one knew of it for two weeks because he isolated himself when he was using. And how his death was the inevitable trajectory of extensive family trauma that went unchecked. What a fucking shitshow our family was....This happened right before covid, so the grieving was interrupted. God knows where it is in my body now.

Maybe it is any of the 550,000 fellow Americans who didn't have to die from a disease that could have been managed if our leadership cared about human life. Seeing kids ripped from their families didn't make me feel happy and more secure at all, neither did the Nazi's I faced off with who extolled the dark virtues of fascism, and still do. The four-year horror show took its toll. Another hater killed someone today in our Nation's Capital over delusional right-wing fantasies fomented by greedy, psychotic idiots.

Could the sadness be over the loss of my soulmate - and I do not use that word lightly - a year and a half ago? My dog Luciano, who was my most passionate, loyal and ardent defender (and I, his), passed of old age. I had never been closer to another being in my life. I will never get over that loss in this earthly life. Makes me fear death less thinking about our reunion someday.

The list goes on and on and on. I can't keep track of all the things that have broken my heart, or break my heart everyday for that matter. Honestly, I am past traumatized by life on this planet. The level of grief I could feel would probably pull me under. I am afraid I could go insane with grief at times, from all the loss I have experienced personally and everyday on a global level. I don't know what to do with it, where to bring it?

In some indigenous and religious societies, humans come together to process loss. They surround the bereaved and hold space while the mourner wails and screams and cries. The community witnesses and offers comfort. It is understood a person is grieving and they are relieved of their duties for sometimes up to a year. When does our village grieve together? Who carries those rituals? The truth is we don't have that built into our culture. We are often left alone to our own devices to work it out. One hour of therapy a week, for instance, isn't enough. We not only need a culture who recognizes the necessity of grief, but one that holds space for the reality of loss as a part of life, bears witness to the painful process,  its impact on our psyche and what happens when we don't grieve!. It doesn't just magically go away. It turns destructive, creating further alienation.

Not grieving makes it okay to hunt elephants for the thrill of it.

If you are one of those stiff people like me, hard, muscles bound and grief laden, walking around very carefully with their hearts full of tears, you are not alone. There is much to grieve and bear witness to. Let us keep planking until we find a safe space and those supportive beings with whom we can let the sorrow transform and stream out of our bodies, returning the love and care to a world that so desperately needs it.