in memoriam: robin williams (1951-2014)

it's a strange thing to feel sad about the death of a person you never met, especially so when said stranger is a celebrity. it is, perhaps, even weirder to feel like you have any sort of ability - any sort of right - to bear witness to the life of a person you don't know. and yet here i am, gutted in a totally unexpected way by robin williams' death, and ready to try to set down words that capture something of my sadness and his life.

-

mostly, i suppose, the ache in my heart has something to do with watching Dead Poets Society nine years ago in a classroom across from a cornfield in lampeter. it all happened right smack dab in the middle of ordinariness, is what i'm trying to get at; i was distracted, giddy with the thought that my english teacher was ... creatively bending the rules w/r/t what we could watch in school. how was i to know that i was about to be given a huge, huge gift?

the tiny seed of a thought (that i could do poetry too) - that's what i'm talking about. which, okay, had to germinate for years and years (six years, to be precise), but: it was there waiting for the right time, nonetheless.

this is what i'm talking about; i watched this clip twice yesterday night and there were tears in my eyes by the end.

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details of robin williams' death keep trickling out into the public, and i have been uncomfortably reminded of david foster wallace's widow talking about how painful the months after his death were. "people read his autopsy report like it was great literature," she said, and the line lodged in my throat, a distasteful reminder of the way we are often voyeurs of suffering.

it is hard to understand why people like dfw and robin williams and aaron swartz and marina tsvetaeva and mark rothko and virginia woolf commit suicide. looking at their life from the outside, it is so easy to see the marvelous, larger-than-life gifts they had, and terribly easy to miss the suffering that chased after them like wolves.

mental illness. it's a thing, y'all. it doesn't discriminate, either, as someone so eloquently put in an article today. at the risk of repeating myself (i put this on facebook earlier):

"these aren't my words, but I read them recently on the internet & thought they deserved a share:

robin williams died today.

here is a list of things that robin williams was:

-funny

-sharp 

-kind 

-clever 

-and sad.

that’s important, the “and sad,” because sometimes sadness can feel like the only thing we are. it can feel all-encompassing. it can feel like the only thing anyone could possibly see, when they look at you: sad. that person is so, so, sad.

but there is always an “and.” we are never just sad. we are never only. we are always and.
we have all known people who were sad, who are sad; some of us are ourselves sad. being sad does not remove the other parts of us, though it can make them harder for us to see. when you are sad, you don’t necessarily feel like you are also funny, and sharp, and clever, and kind.

but you still are. you don’t have to feel like something to be it.

those things are written on your bones, they are woven into the fabric of your skin. sadness can feel so big, so big and overwhelming and complete, even when it is not a directed sadness. maybe especially when it is not a directed sadness, when it’s a depression that has no direct cause and nothing we can name.

sometimes the sadness is too big. people try to cut it out, or starve it out, or drink it down, or drug it silent. if this is you: i’m sorry. if this is you: you are not alone. if this is you: remember that the solution is never to give up, because you do not live in a vacuum. there are people waiting for you. there are films and songs and books and not-sadness waiting for you. i know that you don’t feel like waiting, but wait anyway.

if you need help, ask for it. here’s a link to crisis centers across the globe. (http://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres) if you live in the U.S., this is the national suicide prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255.

robin williams died today, but the genie didn’t, and mrs. doubtfire didn’t, and peter pan didn’t. sean maquire didn’t, and professor philip brainard didn’t, and alan parrish didn’t. batty koda didn’t. john keating didn’t. you didn’t.

don’t."

(source: http://ofgeography.tumblr.com/post/94482062006/robin-williams-died-today-here-is-a-list-of).

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when i read about robin williams' suicide i thought of this tribute to dfw:

I am sad now because his words, his mind, were such a companion to me and to others, yet clearly a terrible master. I wish that I could have returned the favors he has done for me in some small way.

i wish robin williams could have understood the worlds he opened up inside of countless other human beings. i would have liked to tell him that i thought about the Dead Poets Society during the year in college that i started to think of myself as a writer. i would have liked him to know that.

-

when i read about robin williams' suicide i also thought of his role as sean mcguire in Good Will Hunting. 

"It's not your fault."

mental illness, y'all. 

it's a thing.

-

so - yeah. i don't know robin williams. i don't want to be a voyeur to his family's suffering. i can't really say anything about his life, or make meaning from his death. 

but i guess i can say that there are a lot of suicides that are a surprise to the people left behind, and maybe the best way to remember robin williams (and these other artists i love who also took their own life) is to say that i would always, always want to know. mental illness is not too scary for it to be spoken of, okay? i would want to know.

my blog stats say i have readers from 8 countries. i've had over 10,000 hits. who knows how many individuals have virtually visited me? 

to all you nebulous people out there, listen: if you're thinking about suicide, there are places you can turn to for help. you can leave me a comment, if you have to. we'll find someone to help you out.

-

robin williams: 1951-2014. 

your life was a gift to many. 

thanks.

instructions on beating a summer headcold: 1. drink tea 2. lay very still after work 3. blog

i've been listening to anais mitchell a lot, recently - often the child ballads, but i have her album The Brightness in my car and i've been doing a bit more driving than usual, recently.

there's a few lines in the last song on that album that always punch me in the gut a little when i hear it:

you can hold her hand
you can kiss her face
go slow if you can
cause the world is a very sad place
and when she leaves she'll leave no trace
and the world will still be there

 -

i've fallen victim to one of those horrid summer headcolds, so i know i'm already prone to be in a down mood anyway. but: the world feels a very sad place, right now.

-

people on my facebook keep talking about a girl from L-S who was killed in a car wreck this week. she was just a month or so out from graduating high school, all ready to go away to college. and now she's not, and that's that.

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sometimes i see headlines about syria, or israel, or the west bank, or the gaza strip, and i just can't open the articles. i can't make myself read them. other times i read them and just feel very heavy and tired.

i happened to see pictures, this week, of the crowds teetering on the edge of riots in east jerusalem; streets i could have walked on, maybe, the jerusalem stone familiar in the photos; streets now full of anger and bitterness and the stench of hate. israeli teens: murdered. palestinian teens: murdered in retaliation. stones thrown.

i happened to see pictures, this week, of parents running with small children in their arms down the streets of gaza city, smoke billowing up in the background.

the spirit groans.

-

a couple from my university is traveling - soon, very soon, in their orientation even now - to iraq, for three years. it is hard not to be afraid.

-

and yet the world is still there, somehow, despite it all.

like: holding two very small humans this past weekend; twin baby girls born into a home fairly shimmering with love for the created earth.

like: getting letters in the mail from old friends.

like: a weekend with my family, camped out in the backyard.

and like this:

To love is to feel your death
given to you like a sentence,
to meet the judge's eyes
as if there were a judge,
as if he had eyes,
and love.

and like this:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

and like this:

 Surely I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.

-

the world is a very sad place. but headed, i hope - i believe (help me with my unbelief) - for redemption. 

why I write (an exercise in attention)

IV ii

in the middle of traffic at Church and Gerrard I notice someone, 

two women, for a moment unfamiliar, not crouched with me

in a hallway, for this moment unfamiliar, not cringing at the

grit of bombers, the whine of our breath in collapsing chests, in

the middle of traffic right there for a moment unfamiliar and

familiar, the light changing and as usual in the middle of almost

dying, yelling phone numbers and parting, feeling now, as the

light beckons, all the delicateness of pedestrians. I wish that I

was forgetful. All that day the streets felt painful and the

subways tender as eggshells.

-Dionne Brand

---

in the middle of traffic at Greentree and Old Georgetown I notice the 

two black women waiting for the crosswalk to start counting down,

20, 19, 18... I step confidently past them, I walk across the six lanes, 

the light is green; I have the right of way, the light is green and I step into 

traffic; I step out on to the dark macadam and the car turning right

honks, the driver leaning into the sound, and I keep walking. The solid thunk

of my books keeps thunking across the six lanes and the light is green.

I'm not who I was. I hold my head up. I stare into middle distance. My boots

thunk on the solid road.

all the delicateness of pedestrians. the last time a driver honked at me while

I had the right of way was while crossing a four-lane (five lane?) (six lane?)

road in Damascus. I do not wish that I was forgetful. 

And yet: all that day the streets felt painful and the subways tender as eggshells.

---

"And my personality is such that I'm more likely to just sit and try to figure it out. But I'm getting better at using M___ as a resource, I think."

He looks at me closely. Nods. "Constitutionally, I'm like that. Maybe it's a Mennonite thing. Take care of yourself, be self-sufficient. You know."

I can feel the corner of my mouth tipping up. Yes. I know.

"But you're still having fun," he asks, before sending me on my way to catch the bus. "You're still feeling like you're growing? Because that's high on my priority list."

I pace in the elevator, too alive to keep still.

---

I close Dionne's book, holding my place with my index finger, think of what else I've read on this bus route. Fahrenheit 451 is the first thing that comes to mind.

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. 

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.

The man next to me gets off at Rolston Road. I think of Jacqueline Berger's poem The Failure of Language, think "there are no right words," ask myself "...or does it only deepen what we know of loss?" 

I get off the bus at my stop. Marywood Road. I start trudging up the hill. It is dark; I think of the little red cabin in Pennsylvania that my grandparents took us to when I was small. I think of the streetlights on South Fulton Street. I think of walking late at night on the roads west of EMU.

I think, as I walk, of Jacqueline Berger writing about her friend's kitchen; I don't have the whole poem memorized but I know the line about the glass, the etched walls, "and add it to a box marked Kitchen."

That line is the whole poem, I told Thia once. The weight of it, the amber against the glass, all of it wrapped in words (newspaper) and reduced to a brown, nondescript box... the poem was trying to rescue rescue her friend from her radiant perishing, was trying to see and love what was vanishing, and the language was important. The language was so important, was the thing that could keep a life from disappearing into a small brown box.

---

I estimate that since January 1 of this year, I have written very nearly 100,000 words. They have taken the form of academic essay, poetry, blogging, journal entries, and attempts at fiction.

Oh, and letters. Maybe - maybe add a few thousand more words to that tally.

---

I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense.

-Ray Bradbury

---

Last week I was looking through an old journal in search of something and stumbled across this instead: 

...and also him telling me that he had heard i can 'read a book and know it.' 

They make good companions, books do. They are worth carrying around in your head, worth the mental space.

---

It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No,no it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.

-Ray Bradbury

---

There are no right words, if by right we mean perfect. But there are good words, and words worth remembering. 

As I walked up the dark sidewalk to the door of my apartment, I had a line of a poem knocking around in my head - "I am not done with my changes." 

I couldn't remember where it was from, and so I looked it up. Oh, yes. the layers by Stanley Kunitz. how shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? 

yet I turn, I turn...

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go...

I think again of my conversation with K___. "You're happy?" he asked me. "You're growing?" 

I think of Lancaster, of Harrisonburg.

Some losses. Some gains. 

Maybe I am finally learning how to love the place I am in.

---

In this language I have sought, during those years and the years since then, to write poems: so as to speak, to orient myself, to find out where I was and where I was meant to go, to sketch out reality for myself.

…A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the—not always greatly hopeful—belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense too are underway: they are making toward something.

Toward what? Toward something standing open, occupiable, perhaps toward an addressable Thou, toward an addressable reality.

Such realities, I think, are at stake in a poem.

-Paul Celan

It was definitely one of those "ask and you shall receive" moments.

I mean, except for the way that I didn't ask, exactly.

* * *

A few weeks after starting my job, a got a postcard from a friend. He said, "I hope you are feeling like your adult, real world life is fulfilling and challenging..."

I just so happened to receive that letter on a day when I felt those things, but I answered him something like this: "Last week I was afraid I was wasting the only life I have, but today is better. I think all my angst was a result of a headache and too-little sleep."

Funny how that matters, I told my friend. It makes me think of something C.S. Lewis wrote, that how good we are is more dependent on what we ate for breakfast than we like to imagine.

* * *

There was this book I read when I was a kid, a funny sci-fi story where a girl gets trapped in a virtual reality game and can't get out. The whole story is about her efforts to escape. Near the end she starts crying, and that's when the game lets her leave.

Because it was designed to be hard, but not that hard.

* * *

The past few weeks have felt so, so difficult. The work that The Housemate and I are doing isn't hard, exactly, but it's technically quite challenging, and requires hours and hours of highly focused concentration. My project has had a lot of road bumps. There's been a lot of - hm, how to say it. A lot of not inconsequential issues for me to learn about and deal with; the anti-vibration table being mis-aligned and causing mechanical stress on my cells, air bubbles in the solution exchange system, cells sticking to the coverslips, the cell-culture room overheating. Etc.

And my personality is such that I am nearly always much more likely to try to sit and reason/work my way out of a hardship than ask.

* * *

One of my lab mentors got back from a work trip last week and came in yesterday to help try and solve some of my technical issues. A few minutes in and he said, "Well, this is obviously not working right," thumping on the anti-vibration table. He shook the Farraday cage and tugged on some cables, and a few moments later said, "Alright. I think I fixed all your problems."

And he was right.

Today the woman who is overseeing my project stopped by my little cave. "I heard S___ solved the problem, hm?" she asked. "The table, right?"

I nodded.

"I never would have thought of that," she said. "Huh."

* * *

Okay, so what am I even trying to say, all these scattered shards...

The past few weeks the Big Boss has been telling me, "Emily, you have to ask questions." And I would get so frustrated, because I felt like I was. I would ask, and I would try to apply what I learned, and nothing was working.

But I think I wasn't asking the right questions. I wasn't asking the right people. I wasn't chasing down the question, knocking on every door I could.

* * *

On Monday morning I woke up with a stiff neck. I must have slept in a funny position or something. So Monday and Tuesday I was in pain. Tuesday evening when I was biking home from the NIH campus, I was thinking about how it was probably actually dangerous to be biking, because I couldn't turn my neck.

I was frustrated with work. Stymied, confused. I was in pain. I was tired. My life felt very hard.

I find it is less easy to be optimistic and joyful when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, so to speak. Less easy to find fulfillment, meaning.

* * *

This morning, during lab meeting, I just got this lovely sense that it isn't supposed to be this hard. 

You know, I didn't actually end up asking the right question, ever, but the problems got resolved anyway. I told the Boss tonight that today was the best day I've had yet.

* * *

Maybe what I'm trying to say is this -

this whole week I've been thinking about that phrase ask and you shall receive. 

At work, that means - well, it means work, yeah? (Usually, at least), it means chasing people down, asking variants of the same question over and over again, it means reading scientific papers and trawling through the vast recesses of the internet.

This morning, though, the bone-deep sense I got that things aren't supposed to be this hard... it was like a lesson in grace. Imagine if God was waiting around for us all to have the right question. I, for one, would never get anywhere.

No, instead it feels like sometimes God is just ready to open the door to abundant life even if we barely have the energy to crawl up on the porch.