Into the Blue: Cocoon
Before we put in the radiant floors, before we replaced the screens with Marvin windows, this porch was brown—with a sisal wall-to-wall rug, tan furniture we inherited from my parents, and camel-colored paint. The colors reminded me of my grandfather's Ford station wagon that he sometimes picked us up from school in when my mother couldn't. The porch is off of our living room, on the northern side of our house. When I shut the porch door, I feel like a caterpillar in her cocoon: soothed by the muffled sounds of my family moving about in the kitchen and the wraparound views of our backyard.
It was on this tan porch that I came to know grief. When my cousin passed away—suddenly and tragically at 41—I had no concept of grief beyond the universal dread of losing someone we love too soon. I never imagined grief would simply send me to the couch on this porch for days on end. It was all I could bear—to lie there in my cocoon of grief. I was consumed by my inner world, willing only to leave it to gaze at photos of my cousin, read text and email exchanges between us, or obsessively check social media, hungry to experience him through others. Coming to terms with a world without my cousin demanded all of me. Eventually, I wrote a poem, and that helped me get off the couch.
A few years ago, we renovated our porch into a year-round space; it's now painted a nuanced shade that shifts from moody blue to soft gray depending on the light. The couch is big and white, covered with down pillows. Eight years later, I am lying on said white couch, on our renovated porch, cocooned in a new grief. And so, I've decided to write to see if it helps...
It was Wednesday, two days after my 46th birthday. Roo was in NYC. Pip was home, sick with the flu. Otherwise, it felt like a normal day—teaching, counseling, driving to appointments and meetings, pausing to tend to Pip. As I drove to and from, I listened to Andrea Gibson read their poem Tincture:
Imagine, when a human dies,
the soul misses the body, actually grieves
the loss of its hands and all
they could hold. Misses the throat closing shy
reading out loud on the first day of school.
I didn't see any missed calls.
...not until I was on my way to pick up Phoebe—there were two voicemails:
9:08 am: "I just got a text about Blair..."
11:45 am: "I'm just so sad about this news about Blair."
What news? What's happened to Blair?
I pull over. I call her cousin. I call our friend. No answers. For thirty more minutes, I am suspended in a cocoon of not knowing. For thirty minutes, my mind works in overdrive to deny the crack slowly forming across my heart.
Imagine the soul misses the stubbed toe,
the loose tooth, the funny bone. The soul still asks, Why
does the funny bone do that? It’s just weird.
Imagine the soul misses the thirsty garden cheeks
watered by grief. Misses how the body could sleep
through a dream. What else can sleep through a dream?
My friend calls me back. And then I know:
Pneumonia. Sepsis. Organs shut down. All happened very quickly.
What else can laugh? What else can wrinkle
the smile’s autograph? Imagine the soul misses each falling
eyelash waiting to be a wish. Misses the wrist
screaming away the blade. The soul misses the lisp,
the stutter, the limp. The soul misses the holy bruise
blue from that army of blood rushing to the wound’s side.
Oh, Blair. You fought so hard to stay in your body—even when your face was disfigured again and again, even when you lost most of your tongue and your ability to speak clearly—even when they cut pieces from your leg bone and scapula to reconstruct your jaw—even when you couldn't eat—even when you had to clamp onto a gauze pad to stop the drool—you fought to stay in your body.
When a human dies, the soul searches the universe
for something blushing, something shaking
in the cold, something that scars, sweeps
the universe for patience worn thin,
the last nerve fighting for its life, the voice box
aching to be heard. The soul misses the way
the body would hold another body and not be two bodies
but one pleading god doubled in grace.
Although it was a shock to my system last June to witness just how much your body endured over the past eight years, it was divine to hold you, and be held by you—to smell, to hear, to see you. The hours melted away as you alternated between removing the gauze to speak—and when I couldn't quite make out the words—typing out your thoughts on your phone. Even your shorthand was a testament to your gift with words.
The soul misses how the mind told the body,
You have fallen from grace. And the body said,
Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse.
There isn’t a single page in the bible that can wince,
that can clumsy, that can freckle, that can hunger.
Imagine the soul misses hunger, emptiness,
rage, the fist that was never taught to curl—curled,
the teeth that were never taught to clench—clenched,
the body that was never taught to make love—made love
like a hungry ghost digging its way out of the grave.
You told me about your new version of hunger: when you noticed your mind thinking about food--not craving it, but thinking about it. "It must be time to feed myself," you said.
We left the living room. There was no need to go to the kitchen—your feeding pump and enteral nutrition formula were waiting on the dining room table. No refrigeration necessary.
I watched the formula pump into your stomach, in awe. You kept talking—you showed me a journal you were keeping with Athena and Smokey—doodles, quotes, colors, poems.
Later, you were washing Athena's cereal dish, yelling to Smokey upstairs to wake up so I could see her before I left:
"Blair," I said, "I forgot how tall you are."
You laughed. In that moment, my heart was consumed by all of you.
Did my body know it was her last time with yours?
The soul misses the unforever of old age, the skin
that no longer fits. The soul misses every single day
the body was sick, the now it forced, the here
it built from the fever. Fever is how the body prays,
how it burns and begs for another average day.
The soul misses the legs creaking
up the stairs, misses the fear that climbed
up the vocal cords to curse the wheelchair.
There was a point when I got angry—how utterly selfish of me to make it about my inability to withstand your pain. But it was so much to comprehend, Blair—what you endured, what you were fighting for.
But I get it now. Every. single. moment. in our beautiful bodies is a gift.
When a human dies the soul moves
through the universe trying to describe how a body trembles
when it’s lost, softens when it’s safe, how a wound would heal
given nothing but time. Do you understand? Nothing in space can
imagine it. No comet, no nebula, no ray of light
can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame.
The fingertips pulling the first gray hair
and throwing it away. I can’t imagine it,
the stars say. Tell us again about goosebumps.
Tell us again about pain.
Blair, I feel you when I brush back my gray hairs, when I complain about my cellulite, my wrinkles, my freckled hands.
I feel you when I drive Pip to school, watch Phoebe’s basketball game, kiss them goodnight, see them in the morning.
I feel you when I drink a beer from the nipple-covered glass you created.
I feel you as much in death as I did in life—you have dispersed everywhere.
Remember the necklace you made all those years ago—the one of a copper sperm overlaid on a silver egg? I have it here, in my hand—you gave it to me when you tired of wearing it around your neck. How cool you were, adorning this talisman of creation.
Is death no different from that natal membrane fusion? Is death the moment a body expires, releasing the spirit to pierce and merge with the membranes of all living matter?
This would explain how I feel you when I ski Mad River Valley, when I write, when I dance.
This would explain how I feel you when I listen to The Allman Brothers sing Soulshine and as I glue pink and blue cut-out hearts to my valentine.
For always, I am yours, Blair, for you to live within and through. Please stay.
Now, I too am the coolest, most soulful warrior.
As always,
thank you for reading.