What Matters Now?

Writing Through Grief and Loss

Nina entering the Super Bloom, Point Reyes Seashore, April 2022

Hello, again, dear readers and writers. It’s been a minute.

Since my last post, I’ve been sitting with a deep sense of loss. It’s not only the recent US election results (which I found devastating), but the loss of a real flesh and blood beloved friend, Nina Schnall. I knew Nina for 22 years. In that time, we wrote and traveled together, led writing workshops together, and helped one another heal after the loss of many people in our lives. It’s not without irony and that I am now writing my way through her loss.

I’ve studied writing as a transformative art for decades, and have led grief workshops since 2009 (in fact, Nina attended my very first one), but I am struggling to navigate this time after Nina’s death, this ache in my heart. I always tell my workshop participants that we are going to “write our way through” whatever it is we are feeling, whatever it is we are trying to make sense of, and so, here I am again. I’m right here with you, writing my way into this sadness.

I have so much more to write about Nina, and because she was a wonderful writer herself, I hope to share her writing here someday soon as my first guest writer. But today I also want to to offer you a virtual workshop, so let it be suffice to say you’ll be hearing more from Nina Schnall. Until then, you can read some of her work here.

Now for the quote and this week’s writing prompt.

The quote is from Isabel Allende, who also reminds us that we have to write our way through:

Mourning is like going through a tunnel, and you don't see the light at the other side. Just keep walking, because there is light—trust me—there is light at the other side, but you have to walk, and your way of walking is writing. 

The prompt is a deceptively simple one this week. Respond to this question:

“What matters now?”

Allow yourself to write your way directly into this present moment, and let it ground you as you acknowledge any recent loss.

What I wrote in response is below, followed by the poem, “In Blackwater Woods,” by Mary Oliver, from her collection, American Primitive.

---

What I wrote:

This is what matters now: pulling in close, not numbing out, not self-medicating. Not running away.

What matters is nourishing oneself and others, returning gently to self-care, dreams, goals, hopes, wants. Resistance means pulling back, not giving up: checking in. How to return over and over again this way without making it obligatory, arduous? How to pull in slowly without cutting out?

Nourishing the body with healthy, whole foods, delicious foods, foods that heal and repair. Foods that do not harm the earth.

Nourishing the body with movement: long, dreamy walks (even in the rain), noticing the flash of wild parrots, the red-tailed hawk who lands in the Cypress, then moves to the streetlamp, watching you. Are you the predator or the prey? Is this a visitation? Maybe it’s your mother, or Merijane, maybe that ruby-throated hummingbird is Dean.

Take in the clouds, the evergreens, the sugar maples revealing their true colors, the ginkgos, suddenly a flash of yellow, then dropping all at once to the ground, sobbing for what has been lost.

Nourish the mind: read and listen to critical thinkers, TED talks, political comedians, interviews, spiritual guides, writers.

Nourish the soul: gather to share food, stories, memories, accomplishments, hopes, actions, laughter, sorrow, disappointment, strategies, goals.

Recipes. Photos. Music. Dreams.

Reach out to your healers, your chosen family, your expat friends who want you to visit.

Schedule a massage. Find a meditation guide.

Connect, connect, connect, connect.

Don’t withdraw. Do whatever you have to do to connect

---

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees 
are turning 
their own bodies 
into pillars 

of light, 
are giving off the rich 
fragrance of cinnamon 
and fulfillment, 

the long tapers 
of cattails 
are bursting and floating away over 
the blue shoulders 

of the ponds, 
and every pond, 
no matter what its 
name is, is  

nameless now. 
Every year 
everything 
I have ever learned 

in my lifetime 
leads back to this: the fires 
and the black river of loss 
whose other side 

is salvation, 
whose meaning 
none of us will ever know. 
To live in this world 

you must be able 
to do three things: 
to love what is mortal; 
to hold it 

against your bones knowing 
your own life depends on it; 
and, when the time comes to let it go, 
to let it go.