Writing Through Loss

Heather and I, 1967.

I recently took an eight-week class/session on Writing Through Loss through Mission Hospice (where Heather was in hospice). I haven't done a lot of creative writing recently, and I thought it might help with re-energizing my writing chops as well as working through some grief. It was a weekly class (though class doesn't feel like the right term to use and it was more therapeutic than that). We had various writing prompts using various grief topics during class as well as some homework prompts over the weekend. 

Some of the things I wrote, I just wrote. They weren't special. they just got my thoughts down in front of my eyes. Other pieces that I wrote felt like I was mining a vein of something. It felt good, like I'm becoming a writer again. My brain is critiquing the books I'm reading and listening to as a writer would. I'm not just listening like a sponge. If you are going through a loss yourself, I recommend a writing class like this. Or an art/grief therapy class.

 

Anyway, it's been a minute since I posted anything here and I thought I would share something I wrote for the Writing Through Loss class.

The piece below I wrote for a prompt about the veil between the worlds that is supposed to be thinner during Halloween/Samhain/All Hallow's Eve and what I thought about that. 

The Veil by Rachel Olivier

 I like the idea of a “veil” between the worlds — one that is thinner at certain times of the year or day, or even in different parts of the world. I like texture and textiles, so I think of the veil as something that varies between the gossamer thin silk used by dancers and the deep, heavy velvet of a stage curtain, and from light, gauzy white to the darkest midnight, and all the colors in between, depending on when and where the veil is. All it takes is someone who is extra sensitive to communicate with those who happen to be on the other side of that veil, whether it be ghosts, spirits, sprites, trolls, fairies, plants, or animals. I anthropomorphize everything anyway, so it’s not a far leap for me. Every Christmas Eve I wait up until midnight and hope that this will be the year when the cats actually “talk” to me. They never do, but I always hope. I always hope that Dad or Gramma or former cats, and now my sister Heather, will drop by for a visit, either in my dreams, or at 3 a.m., or when I’m reading my tarot cards or lighting candles.

Dad and Gramma (Mom’s mom) both died in October; Heather and Grampa (Mom’s dad) died in January and February. I think of the time between autumnal and vernal equinoxes as the dead of the year. It’s the time of year when Persephone makes time with Hades while her mother Demeter wails across the earth grieving for the loss of her daughter. Seems totally appropriate to me for that to be the time of year when someone dies and when the veils between worlds might be thinner. My cats, on the other hand, have all passed on to Bastet’s Fields between March and August, during the spring and summer of the year, when life abounds. And yet, they visit my dreams more often than the humans do. Are felines better able to sneak through that veil? Even when cats are alive they seem to disappear in a closed room. I always assume they’ve found a portal somewhere. Maybe piercing the veil is just another Tuesday for them.

It’s easier to feel the changes in the year, the death of the year, in more northern climes where dead leaves crunch and gray skies take over. Things just feel more dead there during autumn and winter months. Here in L.A., however, where the sun seems to shine all the time, the “dead of the year” doesn’t seem to have the same meaning. In fact, more often than not, I usually think of summer as L.A.’s “dead of the year” because of how hot and dry it gets. But I also think of L.A. as one of those geographic places, like New Orleans or New York, or other cities, where the veil feels like it’s naturally more thin all the time. So many more souls have lived and died in cities. How many spirits are walking amongst the living unnoticed? Does anyone notice them? Do those spirits want to be seen? Does staying up until 3 a.m. make it easier for a visit? And why don’t my spirits, my loved ones, show up for me? And if they did actually show up, what could they tell me that they haven’t already told me? Maybe it’s selfish of me to want them to show up, but all I really want is to spend more time with them.