Books

Grief and Ashes

I am in the middle of reading Robert Bly’s book Iron John. Frankly, I am surprised to only have recently learned about it (thanks Tim) as it sat upon the NYT Best Sellers list for sixty-two weeks after being published in 1990. The book essentially addresses the issues around masculine rites of passage (or the lack there of, in North American culture). In it Bly exegetes the Brothers Grimm fairy tale which tells of a young prince’s journey into manhood. The book is full of prose, poetry, myth, legend and Jungian psychology. In short, it is making me think, which I enjoy, on the whole.

One of the things he addressed is the idea of sitting or living in ashes. Ashes are often used as metaphor for grief, loss, a going down. Job sat in ashes, young Danish vikings would live in the ashes of their longhouse fireplaces in between being boys and becoming men.

I have been told on an occasion or perhaps two, that my ability to discern my own emotions, let alone those of others is stunted. Just recently I have becomes aware, through the honesty (about frickin time) of a few that I am a bit of a control freak. Put another way, I am still in a place of self discovery even at the ripe age of fifty. I think one of my issues, among many, is that I still haven’t learned the art of grieving.

It hasn’t just been Bly’s book that has revealed this insight. A number of people in my life have made note of this deficiency in the past couple of months. Despite my own myopic self perspective, I must admit that it is not something that I am familiar with. Perhaps I am in need of some time in the ashes?

One incident where I feel like I became acquainted with grief was in 2011 when I visited Burundi. I made a trip to the impoverished African country as a coffee consultant with Food for the Hungry. I actually went reluctantly at the time, and most likely would still have the same reservations today. With that said, I encountered at the same time, a spirit of resilience and a crushing poverty on that trip. One evening I called home to talk to Michelle, standing in the middle of rural Burundi I sobbed uncontrollably as I recounted to her how broken the country I was visiting was. Even now, as I think back on that experience, I am confounded by my own response to what I was experiencing. What is interesting, in hindsight, is the fact that my trip to Burundi was my last trip to origin until last February. In many ways, Burundi was for me, the straw that broke the camels back. It was if my subconscious had had enough of poverty, injustice, and suffering. Visiting Costa Rica last February was the first time I returned to a coffee producing country in seven years.

So I am a man very infrequently acquainted with grief it seems. Despite personal loss, death, and failure, I seem to not know how to grieve. Despite almost a decade of living with a warrior wife, who suffers daily, I remain on the fringes of knowing grief. This post offers up no answers. I am not offering up solutions, nor dispensing wisdom in this regard. I am still a young boy in this aspect of my journey. In the Grimm tale, the young prince sets free a hairy wild man, which sets in motion a series of events which leads to maturation. Perhaps having turned fifty, I am finally about to become a man? At minimum, I need to spend more time in the ashes, learning how to discern the emotions in my chest, and in turn, having the courage to look that guy in the face, despite the clouded mirror, and acknowledge the wounds, and learn to grieve.

Mournful thoughts

I am reading searching for sunday by Rachel Held Evans, recently and tragically departed. It seems strange to mourn the death of someone you never knew, grieving a friendship that didn’t exist apart from words on a page. Regardless it, along with the works of Pete Enns has spawned this somewhat angry poem, not directed at them in any way of course, but by elements of my own messy journey.

The world burns,

flames lick hungrily at barred doors, and still,

the bride cowers in stoic certainty, her attendants overwhelmed by deafening silence.

Defiant she braces against the tide, pugnacious, she feigns hospitality.

Self proclaimed heraldess of truth, she secretly harbours judgment and disdain for all those who dare question her.

All hail the word, lifted above the heads of the throng, to be worshipped above all else; idolatry tolerated.

The world burns,

flames lick hungrily at barred doors,

the wedding guests panic in the heat, their cries for sanctuary go unheeded.

Shameless and silent, she sits, confident, upon a crumbling throne.



Ascending up from "Stove Land"

I think I have always wanted to write. Even as a kid, I think that desire was buried somewhere deep, but it was there. I read voraciously as a young person. I was reading heavy books too, Roots, Shogun, The Chronicles of Thomas R Covenant, just to name a few. Reading for me, unbeknownst to me at the time, was most likely a form of escape. The stories in those books were filled with places I could go to avoid pain. As I continue to dive deep into this journey that I am on, I am confronting the patterns of many others, and seeing similarities. Reading like I did as a youngster is definitely a common theme.

Despite the fact that I have often had a blog as an adult, I also know how much eleven years of university sucked the joy of reading and writing from my bones. It is only in the last year that I have even started to pick up a book, and the same can be said with writing. I attended a food and wine writing workshop in Kelowna in 2013, hosted by my friend Jennifer Cockrall-King, and truthfully I have often wondered why. That conference was a great experience in terms of the activities that we participated in, but the writing workshops almost had a negative effect on me, shutting down my desire to write. I think that I, like so many others, struggle with the basic notion of being a writer. What do I have to offer, what would I write that anyone would want to read?

I picked up Steven King’s “On Writing” this week and started in on it today. I started Margaret Atwood’s Master Class this week, and both offer up the sage advice that you aren’t a writer if you don’t write. So start writing! Like many who like to watch programs about cooking, but don’t cook, I think I adopted this perspective about myself in terms of writing.

I guess I had already decided a while ago that I was going to just write, regardless of what people thought about what I wrote. While this isn’t entirely true, I haven’t yet written with complete abandon, I have already let that horse out of the barn.

Back in December I asked people which book they thought changed their life.

I am indebted to my friend Dave Z for recommending “The Brothers K” by David James Duncan. It is a beast of a book! And to be honest, I have listened to this book via Audible, and not sat and read it (which probably would have been faster). I am almost finished, less than 30 minutes left in the over 28 hours of audio. I have spent a lot of time walking, and listening, getting to know the Chance family. The narrator of this book should get an Oscar (if they had one for reading audio books!). If you haven’t had a chance to read this book yet, I too, highly recommend it.

As someone who is emotionally stunted and emotionally illiterate, I am beginning to discover that books, or maybe more accurately, the accumulation of language is perhaps a key to unlocking the cage which has held all of my emotions locked up all these many years. Obviously writing about my journey in this blog has been therapy of sorts, but more than that, I am beginning to actually experience an emotional response as I listen to books like The Brothers K or Washington Black. Prior to this, I would say that it was only while watching movies that I felt any real emotions, and now that seems to have expanded to the realm of words.

The character Irwin who is emotionally damaged after his stint in Vietnam and a military mental asylum (electric shock therapy and all) begins to find his way back to being human by building wood stoves. It is his way of trying to climb back up from the nether regions of previous trauma. Irwin’s brother Peter names this intermediary emotional world as Stove Land. This idea of Stove Land resonated with me. The idea of climbing up from a world devoid of emotions, finding something to cling to, some common language to speak in the process. I am beginning to understand that perhaps writing is my Stove Land.

I know that one of the tasks at hand is to broaden, or more accurately develop, an emotional vocabulary. I don’t even have words for most of what I feel, which makes it hard to articulate those feelings with any precision. I recently finished reading “Running on Empty” by Dr. Jonice Webb and she has an appendix of words to describe one’s emotions. It is a very long list, I have a lot of words to learn.

I am also determined, perhaps not yet fully committed, to writing a book. I haven’t yet decided whether this book will be fiction, or not, whether it will be related to my life, or not, but I am going to write it. You may never get to read it. As Margaret Atwood says, the waste paper basket is God’s gift to the writer. Having said that, I will most likely eventually put it out there, with trepidation, but then as I am discovering, this is the plight of every writer. Until then, this blog and the Transcend blog will have to do.

Which Book Changed Your Life?

I just finished reading Esi Edugyan’s amazing novel Washington Black. This book rocked my world. I spent over nineteen hours walking the ravine with my dog Charlie, getting to know a young boy, a slave, born in the Barbados. It is early in the 1800’s and for three weeks, I journeyed alongside this courageous boy, as he traveled and became a young man. I can’t recommend this novel with enough of the credit it deserves. I finished this book yesterday, and the ending shocked me, emotionally wounded me (in a good way). It even prompted me to write a poem about the journey, although it isn’t finished (and truthfully might never be)…..

Screen Shot 2018-12-12 at 10.39.49 PM.png

Now I am looking for something else to listen to as I walk my dog Charlie, and that is where you come in, hopefully. What book changed your world? I am not talking Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys here, but more Shogun, or Roots! If you would let me know what I should read next, I would be most appreciative.

Books I think you should read

I read a tonne, but realistically, most of my reading is online, threads, short reads. Having spent eleven years in university, where all I did was read books (most of which I didn't want to read) I don't read books very often any more. And to be transparent, these two books that I am recommending I have consumed via Audible which is my new favourite way to "read".

Trevor Noah's book Born A Crime was an excellent read. Not only did I learn a lot about the man and what makes him tick, I learned a lot about the history of South Africa, which was most shocking. I am a big fan of Trevor, and his book made me even a bigger one.

The other book I am currently in the middle of is Brené Brown's book The Power of Vulnerability which I am finding quite challenging. Brown is a great communicator and seems to have a knack for poking me in the areas of my life which probably need poking.