Through the wringer

[mdlbear]

I've been feeling vague all day; detached, fuzzy; the world seems subdued, and looks as if much of the color had been washed out of it. Grief? Depression? The fact that I didn't have breakfast this morning? Quite possibly the latter, as I'm feeling much better now.

Hadn't realized that my wife's grieving (mainly over the friend she lost just before Consonance, though there's more) could trigger as much of a reaction in me as it seems to have done. My Dad and Amy are coming in out of my past to haunt me again. Well, they're familiar ghosts, at least.

Zyrtec seems to have a substantial bounce-back, even after a single dose. I'll skip it, thanks; then I can have my glass of gin in the evening. Cyclobenzaprine, on the other hand, is wonderful stuff: stopped the back cramps dead, and got me a good night's sleep. Note to self: don't take it in the morning unless you intend to stay in bed all day.

For some reason I find the long, last phase of the grieving process -- acceptance, or reorganization depending on your source -- to be creatively very productive. There will be ghosts in the song, I think.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Well, that'll give cflute something new to work on... ghost songs and bass flutes just seem to be made for each other. :)

[mdlbear]

Might be a while...

[quadrivium.livejournal.com]

*Hugs* Zyrtec makes me sleepy too. I've been avoiding allergy medicine altogether or taking Claritin.

There will be ghosts in the song, I think.

I love this last line of your post, S.

[mdlbear]

Thanks!

Some of my recent posts have taken a turn back toward prose poems and blank verse. Can't say that I mind.

[min0taur.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you treat the ghosts with love and respect. That is great wisdom.

[mdlbear]

Some of them, anyway. Some are hard -- or impossible -- to love, but they all have something to say, and they'll trouble your sleep until you've heard it.

Thanks. You are very insightful, and I needed that particular insight.

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

My personal experience is that people don't change all that much when they die. If they were mostly or irritating or clueless in life, then they also tend to be that way once they are on the other side of the veil. It isn't that growth isn't possible. It is, but death isn't a magical "promotion" to higher knowledge or behavior.

My grandmother used to argue all the time with her dead brothers, the two that were killed in WWI and after those "visits" could always be caught muttering about how they hadn't learned a darn thing from being killed in France. For some reason, she thought death in the trenches should have made Reggie and Jack smarter. Sadly, it didn't. I don't know if she ever made peace with that particular bit of awareness. I'm still struggling with it, myself. Leonard drove me up the wall when he was alive, and he can do it still. But then again, that is kind of comforting/irritating, at least to me, and it makes me miss his physical presence less.

I hope your ghosts treat you with love and respect. It they don't, it's okay to tell them you need some space and privacy. The nice thing about being on this side of the veil is that you can learn to put up the "do not disturb" sign and make it stick. It just takes a bit of practice. Hold up a imaginary remote control and hit mute. It works a charm. Whoopie Goldberg could have done that to Patrick Swaze in "Ghost" if she had just known, but that would have made for a short movie.

[mdlbear]

You may be taking me a bit too literally -- there's nothing supernatural here, only memories. Some of them are dead people, sure, but one's a stillborn child, and two are friendships. I don't know how many are illusions -- the ghost of an illusion is a particularly tenuous entity. Not quite as palpable as the old woman Colleen claims to have seen on the back stairs, but ghosts nevertheless.

Mostly they're only there when they're trying to tell me something. Some times I can hear them more clearly than others.