Posted on

Fourteen Paintings for No One: The Most Somber Art Ever Made

Sad art is everywhere, and it comes cheap. Somber art is rare, because somber means sorrow that keeps its shape after the tears dry, sorrow with gravity, no laugh track, no lifeline. Ask which art is the most somber of all and the question sets a brutal standard: the winner must be born of grief, must depict grief, must refuse every exit from grief, and must offer no joy and no gesture of human harmony anywhere in its making or its reception. That last clause is the killer. Art is a social act before it is anything else. A song wants an ear. The play wants a house. Every poem wants a voice to carry it. Harmony rides along in the address itself, before a single consoling note gets played, and so nearly every candidate for the darkest art in the world fails on delivery, whatever horrors it contains.

Continue reading → Fourteen Paintings for No One: The Most Somber Art Ever Made

Posted on

Cry Later: The Culture That Taught You Not to Grieve

The commands arrive early. They arrive in childhood, in the voices of parents and teachers and coaches and older relatives, and they are delivered with the same authority as instructions about traffic and hot stoves. Cry later. Hold it in. Do not show your emotions. Do not embarrass us. Be strong. Be brave. Be a man. There will be time for that later. Not here. Not now. Not in front of people.

Content Note: This book contains accounts of suicide, suicidal crisis, and the deaths of family members, friends, and companion animals. Part Five includes detailed accounts of suicidal ideation and completed suicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by phone or text at 988. The Crisis Text Line is available by texting HOME to 741741.

Continue reading → Cry Later: The Culture That Taught You Not to Grieve

Posted on

Calcification of Sorrow

Life is about letting go, starting over, and grief on the way to the grave. In between those monumental stations of human being, we endeavor to find contentment, discover joy, and save friendships from perishing. Here is how Vincent van Gogh drew to know sorrow in 1882.

Continue reading → Calcification of Sorrow

Posted on

Grieving is the Price of Love and Friendship

One of the keys to living a human life is equally accepting the joys and the sorrows of our short time on this earth.  We love to celebrate good things like birthdays and marriages and births, but when it comes to the sadder side of bouncing on this mortal coil, we often turn inward and inky and ask for privacy, and sometimes, we might even feel ashamed for feeling desperate and undecided.  We need space and room to grieve because grief is the price we pay for love and friendship even though we may be reluctant to settle that barter.

Continue reading → Grieving is the Price of Love and Friendship

Posted on

Depression, Alzheimer's and Grieving

Clinical Depression is a horrible, nasty, bit that can ruin people and destroy families.  So many people are living in the gloom of depression without realizing they are so far into the depths that they cannot see there is a way out.

Continue reading → Depression, Alzheimer's and Grieving

Posted on

Giving Grief in America

Grieving is frowned upon in America.  We are expected to buck up, to smile, and continue on with our day even in our deepest despair.  Grief, in America, is marker for a visible weakness and those in active grieving are required to put on a happy face and sing a tuneful song to demonstrate their fortitude and their goodwill for their fellow kind or risk being indelibly labeled as a crybaby:  If you must cry — do it in private behind a locked door and under the covers in the middle of the night and don’t make any sound.

Continue reading → Giving Grief in America