Friday 1 February 2013

Lester Bangs

*Argh this post is a bit gruesome. If you are squeamish, please don't read any further. It's also long. My only defence is that I write short disjointed sentences so it isn't as long as it looks at first.

One day last week I read Kenny's beautiful post over at Glow in the Woods, the answer.

It was about a song he had written for his own funeral.
It was the final line that snagged me, that this song remains the most cathartic.
A song for his own funeral.

***

Listening to the radio . . . . a familiar segue around here. . . .

In the morning, on my drive to work, I am frequently accompanied by a programme called 'The Life Scientific' which is a sequence of 30 minute interviews with leading scientists about their work.

The interview on this particular morning was one with an entomologist, Amoret Whitaker. She works, in her day job, at the Natural History Museum in London but is also, on occasion, called in by the police to crime scenes. In this capacity she collects insect evidence from decomposing bodies to help assist in ascertaining time of death.

As part of her research, she has monitored the decomposition of many bodies, animal and human (the latter only those who have chosen to donate their bodies to scientific research I hasten to add.)

The interviewer asked if she, herself, would choose to be buried or cremated.

She replied, "When you're actually there and you see it up close  . . . . it's a very natural thing. . . nature just doing the natural thing . . . it's very calming and very peaceful . . . it's not violent at all . . . I think it's a very good way to go."

I wished, fleetingly, that I had managed to have Georgina buried rather than cremated. Burial was my first instinct. Gone to earth. Returned to earth.

But I had her cremated instead. Due to various practical considerations.

I did think that perhaps I would like to be buried. It did sound restful.
When Amoret Whitaker described it.

Not violent at all.
No raging against the light, dying or otherwise, necessary.

***

Rest.

In my comment on Kenny's post, I mentioned one of the songs I associate with Georgina. With her death and the strange echoing presence it still has in my life, is Astral Weeks.

Whilst I was looking for a link to the lyrics, I found an extract from "Stranded" published in 1979, the year that I was born, written by Lester Bangs.

He wrote that Astral Weeks is an album about people who are 'stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralysed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend.'

And I thought, ho hum. No wonder I like it so much.

Because I am flapping about like a stunned mullet.
Overwhelmed.
Transfixed by one moment of vision.
Of my tiny, dying child.
The strange, sensation that I nearly had the answer.
That I saw something that I was not supposed to be see.
The inner workings of something.
Fate? God? The void that occupies the space supposedly occupied by either of those two?

I haven't been around much lately. I feel that I no longer have anything useful to say. What possible use could the human equivalent of a fish that has recently been hit over the head be to anyone?

BONK!

Eh?
Hey, hey!
Why are you hitting ME over the head? What did I ever do to . . . . ?

BONK!

Stunned.
All is black.

You! You damn person bonking me over the head!
You took my baby away! Stop! Thief! Bring her . . . .

BONK!

Stunned.

Gasp, gasp, gasp.

Why?! Why are you still hitting me you b******!
It's been four years!

BONK!

Gasp, gasp. Expire.

Dead fish.

A stunned, dead fish with no words of wisdom.

I didn't find peace. Just the occasional moment of oblivion or forgetfulness.

And yet I am at peace.
Possibly as a result of being hit over the head once too often.
So I'm at peace.
Or possibly concussed.
Who knows?

***

It's all such a mishmash.

I want to hold my arms out to you and say, 'it will all be better, it won't hurt as much. Not always. These things you've seen will fade or become understandable, acceptable.'

And it will. It truly will. Joy doesn't stop here.
You might think it has.
With that strange, awful moment of being bonked over the head. Repeatedly.
When your baby dies and you give them up to fire or to the gentle ministrations of insects.

But perhaps you aren't going to ever be quite the same again.

But joy doesn't end here. Don't give up on being alive.
Don't give up on the strange exultation of being alive.

I'm just overwhelmed.
With . . . . an excess of everything.

I look at the shopping centre, in a dull surburban town, full of rain. And it is full of Georginas. Full of our stories. And all those people standing up and bumbling around, looking to buy something in Claire's Accessories or in Tesco, suddenly becoming the stuff of legend. Epically heroic. Wondrous. Because they've all got their Georginas, hanging around their necks, on their backs.

And yet  . . . .they are shopping.

I am shopping? Really?

And some people walk upright and casually.

Other hunch over, bent with their eyes to the floor.

I circle far above us all. I want to hug them all. I want to fly away.

Or at least I want to know which of those trudgers also have wings.

***

I was blind.

But now I see.

***

Thank you Georgina love. But please put the blinkers back over now.

Sometimes I need to un-see.

***

I stand outside work. In the rain.
And the names run down my hair like the water does.
Names who never drew a breath.
If I know you, your babies were there.
In the surburban downpour.
And I hope I didn't summon them there against your will, against their will.

Where are you now? My dears?
Everywhere. Everything. All the time.

Immortal, invisible.

In a puddle in a multi-storey car park outside a dull surburban town suffering in the economic downturn.
And in the stars reflected in those puddles.

Because only you could do that. Only our children could do that.
Inhabit those both at once. Puddles, stars, tarmac, reflecting lights.

Fire can't stop that. Insects can't stop that.
Out of the the way you weaklings.
Fire. Insects. Decay. Destruction. Mortality.
We see you.
Tweet, buzz, burn all you like.

We roar straight past you.
Move on over.

And you fall from our limbs like so much dust.

Fire. Insects. Decay. Destruction. Mortality.

Give it up because you cannot hope to stand against us.
You don't have an ice cube's chance in hell.

We will outlast you.
Because we are their mothers.
Their fathers.

Until we hold them in our arms.

We will endure.

Hi kids.

We miss you. We love you.

In another time. In another place.


18 comments:

  1. You may feel you have nothing left to say, but this touched me. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm glad they were with you in the rain.
    We will endure.
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do believe that we will. I feel so . . . indomitable? . . . when I think of Georgina. As though nothing will defeat me and, if there is any possible way back to her again, I feel certain that I will find it. Somehow.

      Delete
  3. Why do you always make ne cry? I used to think that those whose child had been dead for a year and half had answers so far beyond my knowledge. Their grieving was intrenched and somehow knowledgeable. But you see then that you get to that place and you realize you are still floundering. Being bonked on the head. Shopping "better" better than you were last year but still shopping?? Yes shopping.

    There is still joy and life etc. But we have seen and cannot unsee. It's in everything from my second daughters toes to the socks I am not folding. I see my missing everywhere but feel it in my heart. I cry almost daily. Is it exhaustion? Is it hormones, depression, just plane grief???

    I'm glad you have so much to say, even if it's about the fact that you have nothing to say. I need it. You speak to me even in you 4 years out. I recognize that grieving changes but doesn't go away and so we keep being sad. We wonder why people think we should "be over it" by mow but then I see you putting tge same time restrictions on yourself when your daughter will be forever dead. How we continue on is jaw dropping!

    I have dissected bodies... A lot. Mostly human, some animal. I know I needed my baby cremated. I couldn't stand to think of her body deteriorating in a box. Although the thought of her body consumed by fire makes me want to gasp and clench my chest.

    Thank you for camille's name in the rain. Please think of her because she matters. 19 months since her death. She matters. Just as georgInas does at 4 years out. Sending love. One fish to another.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I still think that Renel. That lots of other people have an 'answer' that I'm just not getting? I'm still hovering around the edges when I feel that I should have 'moved along' by now?

      I still cry a lot. I hope that isn't a bad thing? I cry for her and I cry for Camille and I cry for so many others.

      The first time I dissected a dead animal - I fainted. The first time I dissected a human - I managed not to!

      I used to hold G's ashes. Not so much now.

      Camille does matter. She matters. Truly. Sometimes I think that these children here mean more than anyone else that I have ever met. More than me. I had such a long life before and I never really appreciated it.

      Delete
  4. Very powerful, Catherine. All of our lost babies somewhere in the ether. Just beautiful.

    Christine

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Christine. A was so very much in my thoughts.

      Thinking of you and your daughters so much in recent days xo

      Delete
  5. *wipes away tears*

    Thanks for this touching post. Thanks for bringing our babies into the healing rain. xo

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    Replies
    1. Miss you my dear.

      I hope that you are keeping well. Thinking of your son, Sky.

      Delete
  6. Oh Catherine. This post gave me goosebumps. I am huge Van Morrison fan. When I was pregnant with A I would sit in the evenings, put my feet up and put on relaxing music. One of the songs I played repeatedly was Astral Weeks. I used to imagine once the baby was born it would be soothed to hear the familiar tune.

    Now, Astral Weeks always reminds me of my sweet boy. There are a handful of songs that are "his" songs. It wasn't until a couple months after his stillbirth that I honed in on the lyrics. It was almost spooky in its relevance and in retrospect feels premonitory. Now I can only hope that he will be born again, that our souls will be reunited.

    "Could you find me?
    Would you kiss-a my eyes?
    To lay me down in silence easy
    To be born again, to be born again

    Takin' care of your boy
    Seein' that he's got clean clothes
    Puttin' on his little red shoes
    I see you know he's got clean clothes

    In another world, darlin'
    In another world
    In another time
    Got a home on high"

    Thank you for always holding our babies, and my darling son, so close to your heart.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The first time I ever heard this song I was on a plane, going on honeymoon. And it's all there in the words, just as you say.

      I hope for the same. To be born again. That in another world, in another time? Somehow - it will be different. That I will meet G. That you will meet A. In another place x

      Delete
  7. Lately E has wanted to me to tell her, over and over, what happened to her sister's body. I cannot bring myself to tell her in detail what happens when a body is cremated and I have found myself wishing I could describe something else, the slow return to the earth, to the energy of the world around us, absorption back into the living. I also though burial too claustrophobic and decomposition too gruesome. I wonder if now I know better, and I can imagine us all, lying together forever in some pleasant graveyard. (Though with our luck we'd end up in the crowded ugly plots by the side of the six-lane road, cursing traffic noises for eternity.) It is always good to read your words Catherine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh March. That is hard. I don't know how to explain to J that her sister was burnt. It sounds so brutal.

      I couldn't have G buried where I wanted her to be. And that was part of the reason I had her cremated. To avoid the crowded ugly plots by the side of the six-land road. And so her remains are in a box in our wardrobe. Sigh.

      Delete
  8. Stick around a while longer, Catherine. You have plenty to say because it never goes away (says a silent one).

    There is a moment between sleeping and waking when I feel the weight of loss and time and time moving and life galloping on so acutely, and I think "Not another day". Then I am awake and the weight becomes an undergarment I wear, hidden, but always there.

    Buried or cremated. We buried Laura and I can totally relate to the peace that scientist talks off. I do believe I could have held Laura ini my arms until she were dust. But these days I think I wouldn't mind a bit of Laura in the house, maybe in a jar on the mantelpiece - in the absence of her coming perilously close to hitting her head off the mantelpiece as she leapt off the sofa. You know you can turn ashes into diamonds. These are the kind of conversations I can have these days and envy those with the means to do it rather than be horrified by the very idea of it.

    The perspective gained by those wings is wonderfully freeing sometimes and at those times the undergarment is a comfort not a weight.

    Love to you. Might take out my pencil and start writing again. Inspired....

    x Louise

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Louise. I hope you do write again.

      I love your description of the weighted 'not another day.' Yes. It's always there. And I'm tired.
      But I quite love my undergarment too. It reminds me to feel my weight on the earth.

      I think that we always regret - buried or cremated - we wish we had something different. Of course we do. Heads on mantelpieces.

      Delete
    2. I feel the weight of loss and time and time moving and life galloping on so acutely, and I think "Not another day". Then I am awake and the weight becomes an undergarment I wear, hidden, but always there.

      *****

      Louise-words, so deep so right

      so exactly

      suited.

      Thank you,

      xo CiM

      Delete
  9. Or at least I want to know which of those trudgers also have wings.

    Sometimes I need to un-see.

    Immortal, invisible.

    *****

    'stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralysed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend'

    Yes


    exactly:


    me.

    xo CiM

    ReplyDelete