Tales of disorientation

Dear Reader,

I’m finally home for a stretch of time after so much spring and summer travel, way more than is typical for me. My most recent trip was to Illinois, where I spent six days last week at the Evanston Family Therapy Center with Jill Freedman, Gene Combs and a group of others for the Advanced Intensive in narrative practice. I left feeling really inspired, especially about being and working in groups. More to come in that vein, I think.

When we left New England in April, our plan was to spend the summer in Philly before heading to a different city where I’d start a PhD program I’ve had my eye on for years. It was the only program I applied to in that it is truly a distinct fit for my background and interests. I was overjoyed and a bit surprised to get in, but ultimately decided1 not to go. If I’d gone, I imagine I’d be in the thick of orientations as we speak. Rather than do all this traveling, I’d have spent the summer packing and moving and orienting to life in a new city with my partner and dog.

As part of last fall’s application process, I spent a huge deal of time constructing narratives in various formats. E-mails to faculty, drafts of personal statements, interview practice notes, writing samples reflecting my research interests, monologues to my parents about why I wanted to do that particular program which is more than ten hours’ drive from Massachusetts’ north shore. I really enjoyed that part of the process, especially because in a lot of ways it truly was a good fit. That specific kind of “fit” is not something I experience often so it really felt great.

Now that I’m no longer going, my research is free from the constraints of that department and program and the people who teach there. This is a freedom I know well and can really appreciate. It can be joyful and fun. But it’s also very often, at least for me, lonely and hard. There are literally endless directions to read in, and no one holding me to this one or that. I’ve had a very good summer, and I can say that because I feel ready to “get back to work” whatever that turns out to mean in September. I hope it will mean a renewed focus on the things that I study: grief, disorientation, transformative loss, mourning.

At a crepe restaurant that serves the best Greek salad I’ve ever had2 in Evanston last week, a colleague from the narrative training told me about an annual event in Astoria, Oregon called FisherPoets Gathering. When I got home, I watched a news segment about it, which included an interview with the poet and fisherman Dave Densmore. Densmore tragically lost both his son and father to a fishing accident on his son’s birthday, and began writing poems to cope with the losses. Before he ever read for the crowd in Astoria, he’d go out on the water and broadcast his poems on a quiet channel of his boat radio. In the interview he said he was never mad at the ocean about what had happened. He said, “it wasn’t the ocean’s fault…I still love the ocean.”