Death is Not: Do It Then Done, and so Nor is Grief

My words feel clumsy as they knock against the walls of this reality, attempting to reach beyond, to reach her. They roll about inside the world I can see, only able to describe the things that belong here... not her, and not how I feel about her passing.

People often ask me how I am, they hope I am okay. Sometimes I want to say:
My mother just died. Images of men taking her out in a body bag keep flashing in my head. A memory of saying goodbye–wanting to kiss her hand one last time before they took her, but her blood had pooled and I couldn't raise her hand to my lips because of rigor mortis–this sits on my heart. I remember her eyes–dilated, dark, and dead. I watched my mother, the person who loved me most in this world, my greatest source of love and comfort... I watched my mom turn into a corpse. How the fuck do you think I'm doing?

This is one of the ways my words are clumsy. I am not mad at the question, and I am not mad at the person asking. But I feel SO HARD, so much. Using words is attempting to squish immeasurable forces and feelings into a measurable unit. It can be frustrating and so I apologize for lashing out; and I apologize for not speaking.

Every time I have entered into a social situation since she has passed I have realized I have lost all normal social functioning capabilities. Any time someone greets me as if my universe hasn't just been shaken up, I feel dizzy and confused. Alone, too. Even talking to some of my closest friends leaves me feeling stranded because they cannot be where I am, they cannot understand. They do all they can, and I love them no less. But I am standing on an island that no one else can see.

I am not ready to leave this place, though. Not sure if I ever will be. No matter how alone and no matter how sad, it somehow feels closer to her. Raw, filled with blood, alive and dead... I feel all these things.

I hope, with all of this, that when, if you (all you living loves who may be left behind) ever stand on your own island between here and somewhere, that I can sit in a boat just offshore. If you ever want to step off the island, just for a moment, you will not have to travel far.

My words are also clumsy in expressing gratitude and love–for these things cannot fit into such restraints. But thank you. I love you. I think I still somewhat fear being judged for my pain, for being too mellow-dramatic or for being stuck. I don't want you to push me before I am ready, but I also do not want to be left. Please continue to bear with me as I attempt to re-settle. I'm sorry, I'm sorry... it will not be a short journey.

Eternal Mothering.

I listen to the world much more deeply now. I listen for her and I feel the calm and the peace and the love and the perfect chaos and perhaps that is not all her but she still helps me see it. I thank her for that. I listen to myself much more deeply now. I listen for her and I find myself, truths of who I am that I can now see and love and fight for. I thank her for that. 

Thank you, mom. I love you eternally. 

Be Back Later

I don't feel as though I can be poetic yet, or elegant. But I don't think I will be writing about much else for awhile so one day it may come--a reflection. Now though, I just want to record what THIS is.

I still don't think it has fully hit me yet, which is terrifying. I am waiting for the moment when it hits me full on that she is gone and I can't breathe and I can't function, because I know it will come but the mystery is when... it keeps me on my toes.

Waking up this morning, on the couch since I couldn't sleep in her room, I felt like lead and I couldn't focus on anything, I wasn't thinking about anything, but I couldn't move.

After a couple hours I made it to the breakfast table where Alison told me that I had marks on my face where my tears had fallen and I couldn't wipe them away. I managed to eat a small pancake and then slowly exited from the haze until I was able to take a shower and exist as normal.

I felt weird about this, how normal I felt, how people around me were crying and I wondered if somehow I had done enough of my grieving beforehand to move forward somewhat seamlessly.

Another hour passed and I felt a little sad, the kind of sad I feel on really bad days, the sad I am used to. But it moved down my throat and seeped throughout my body, a heaviness (like lead again) pushing through my veins. My vision began to blur and I lost most of the awareness of my surroundings. My chest tightened and a mild nausea set in. My eyes well and tears fell from my eyes... not crying, exactly, but just nearly constant tears.

I didn't quite understand when people told me grief came in waves, like nausea. It is all too clear, now.

I will not return to Hendrix this semester, I will simply try to return to any basic form of life and go from there–grow into it again. I know I will be different though, it will all be different.

For now the difference just makes me feel sick.

Fuck.

That word, words, all words, no words can even come close to the description of what is inside of me and around me. Words are in a different realm-an earthly one. I feel a spiritual pain that runs deeper than the means by which this world has created to explain or communicate. Perhaps that is why I feel so lost and alone, even while I am surrounded.

But I will try.

I hear: gurgled raspy gasping breaths
I feel: the blanket that lays on atop my mother's withered legs
I smell: stale air sprayed over with happy scents–flowers, lavender, clary sage
I taste: salt tears
I see: my mother, eyes half open, unresponsive, seemingly gasping for every breath and every so often vomit-type substance falling from her mouth.
I see: my mother dying.
When I am asleep, when I am awake.

Nothing could prepare me for such an experience.

Life ain't fuckin' easy.

The matrilineal passage of genes, love, and tattoos.

When I was in middle school I began to plan the tattoos I would get when I got older:
-"Kelly Rose" written with a spiky vine that ends up being the stem of a rose.
-A yin yang of the most intricate quality.
-A picture of a smashed up car with the words "shitty shitty bang bang" written around it.

Luckily, I never did get any of those... although I still think my shitty shitty bang bang idea was pretty clever. Knowing that a tattoo would last forever (and my fear of pain) deterred me from ever following through on any whimsical idea of a permanent mark on my body. It did not feel right adding to my visual representation if it did not resonate with my soul.

This little guy did just that. I did not seek him out, he came to me, and I knew that there was a beautiful reason for his addition to my existence. 

You see, my mother decided to get a ladybug tattoo before I was even born, making it a part of her existence. So, as an ode to her and to represent an even deeper physical/spiritual connection between my mother, sister and I, Kate and I each got our own ladybug wrist tattoos. Their existence attributable to my mother's ladybug, just as mine and Kate's existence is attributed to our mother.

We love you, Mom!

P.S. I designed this lil' dude. He came from this sketch I drew:

What is wrong with you people!? (me included)

Have you ever thought that perhaps these crazy famous folks suddenly losing their heads isn't an affliction just felt by the rich/famous?

We all probably go through this same shit. But most people don't have public outlets that they can manipulate to fuck the world. But we shame them. We spend more time judging them than we do the people who are living near us and beating their dogs.

"Oh they are such bad influences on our children!" Yeah, because without seeing these people acting out, your angelic kids would never be inclined to do anything stupid, outrageous, against your/their morals.... WHAT WORLD DO YOU LIVE IN? This world is chaos. That's it. And yet we spend excessive amounts of energy attempting to swat, stamp, squash and shelter the crazy out of it–out of ourselves, out of our fellows, out of our entertainment, out of our schools, out of our world... la la la la, and on and on.

                                                                  Yea! No More Insanity!

If I had a way to fuck things up publicly hell yeah I'd do it. I'd get drunk and put on a horrendous show to make the mouths of the 'sane' gape. Or I might punch some paparazzi while simultaneously shaving my head into small squares of hair. At least I could show the youngins (and the not youngins) that going off-the-edge isn't something unique to them. When they feel themselves going crazy, at least they could look to me and somehow feel less crazy. Unfortunately, we shame these acts (I have) for the betterment of... what exactly? Sure, society may crumble a little if we allow some insanity, acknowledge that all this living is chaos...or it might improve it, I don't know. It's a gamble but that's. the. point.

I will live. I will have moments of peace where I can focus and read and produce. I will have other moments where I just want things to get fucked up–throw things through windows, run naked through a beehive, spray some cops with water-guns, whatever. In those moments I will think of Miley or Britney, Charlie Sheen and feel not quite so alone. Keep on twerkin', Miley.

I am a tiny fissure in this rupture of the world. keep me sane and I will go insane, let me be insane and I will feel goooood.

That Beasts of the Southern Wild Paper that nearly killed me...

I just re-read it and didn't really understand what I was trying to say. hmm. How about you give it a go? !

Ephemerality Defined in Beasts of the Southern Wild

“When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see everything that made me flying around in invisible pieces. When I look too hard, it goes away, but when it all goes quiet, I see they are right here. I see that I’m a little piece of a big, big universe and that makes things right.“ Hushpuppy’s (Quvenzhané Wallis) final lines in Beasts of the Southern Wild summarize her recognition that ephemerality does not necessitate the mutual exclusivity of permanence and impermanence; instead, the idea of ephemerality pertains to the natural interaction between both what is eternal and what is fleeting. Everything that now is will pass in order to maintain the balance between creation and destruction. However, in passing, all that fades gives way to new births­–an infinite creation. Although this formation of the future from the present becomes an eternal web of connection among all that has been, all that is, and all that will be, the connections are subtle; and the inevitability of impermanence is so overt we often can’t see these subtle connections that endure even after death and change. Therefore, we feel a sense of loneliness and begin to fear loss as we undergo these constant changes that seem only to destroy our relationship with what has been. We learn to grasp everything –objects, memories, relationships, lives, moments through pictures and words, anything we can–in an attempt to prevent more loss. But it is not until we let go that we can finally discover how our one small piece connects with the whole of the universe. We are able to observe and experience this struggle to let go through Beasts of the Southern Wild as director Benh Zeitlin inserts us into this story and this world using techniques such as non-diegetic sounds and self-aware cinematography that help us foster a deep connection with the characters on-screen while maintaining an awareness of our own experience through this film.

            The audience is immediately brought into this journey with a moment to assess what we see “when it all goes quiet” as there is very little noise during the first two minutes of our introduction. Both dialogue and music are absent, we hear only the noises found in nature such as the rustle of wind or the chirping of a bird. Our senses are not immediately overtaken, and our awareness of ourselves remains intact so as the story progresses we experience the change, the emotion, and the empowerment, not second-handed through the characters in the film, but first-hand in ourselves. Through this, Zeitlin is able to impart the struggles and triumphs of letting go not only on his characters, but also his audience.

Zeitlin also utilizes the unsteadiness of a handheld camera to keep us aware of the camera and, by extension, ourselves. Because of this, we rarely lose sight of our own emotional experience and all that is felt and realized in the fictional world directly translates to our reality. For example, we experience a major insight–that we need not attempt to force a semblance of permanence since we’re all already permanently connected to the universe–not through Hushpuppy, but next to her, leaving us with a deeply-founded sense of connection to all things that were, are, and will be.

In order to lead his audience to this insight, Zeitlin uses a compilation of bold soundtrack, at times suffocating, then freeing mise-en-scene, and cinematography that portrays ephemeral qualities.

The struggle for permanence permeates this entire film. All of the characters have a large quantity of random objects strewn among the first half of the frames. In an attempt to gain a sense of control and add permanence to our lives, we collect objects which, being inanimate, are not subject to change. Hushpuppy collects all of the objects that used to belong to her mother in order to keep her mother with her in a tangibly permanent way. She eventually learns, however, that collecting tangible items is unnecessary since she is intrinsically connected with the whole universe and everything that made her. By the time she expresses this realization through her voiceover at the end of the film, “when it all goes quiet, I see they are right here,” the mise-en-scene is free of the clutter of seemingly permanent objects that she once felt she needed to stay connected. In great contrast to the opening scene that showcased piles of objects–tires, old cars, and scrap metal–the final frame showcases only the small community that Hushpuppy is now a part of while the background is washed out and completely free of objects. The contrasting mise-en-scene between the opening scene and the final scene visually portrays Hushpuppy’s ability to let go and finally see the inherent connections she has within herself and in her world.

Zeitlin creates for us the same feelings of struggle for permanence with the opening title sequence. The title suddenly appears on the screen and takes over the entire frame with its large bold font. In the same way, the music accompanies the title as it crescendos and almost overwhelms the audience with the loud repetition of strong sound. Both the title and the music work together to make their presence know and yet as suddenly and boldly as this sensory overload appears, it is gone. Zeitlin uses the opening title to alert us to the fact that no matter how big a presence something may have, and no matter how permanent it may seem, it will always disappear.

Although our instinct may be to attempt to strive against this impermanence in order to minimize loss, Beasts of the Southern Wild exemplifies how attempting to control loss will only make things more difficult. Hushpuppy does, to a certain extent, attempt to create a sense of permanence through the collecting of objects; however it is the rest of society, the “dry side” as Wink might say, that struggles the most to create a world in which everything is long-lasting in an attempt to rid themselves of, or at least postpone, loss. “They built the levee that cut us off,” the concrete, seemingly permanent levee that keeps the dry side safe from the water. Since the water represents change, in its own ability to change state and shape and in its power to implement change by many means including flooding, the dry side is also keeping themselves safe from change. When Hushpuppy and Wink sit on their boat and look at the levee, all the water… all the change is located on their side while the industrial side shows no hint of water, disrupting the balance between creation and destruction.

When we are then shown a closer look at the dry side during the scenes in which Hushpuppy and Wink are at the Open Arms refugee center, the dry side is shown to be suffocating. The color palate of the scenes in the hospital seems sickly, filled only with white and light blue, as green and other vibrant colors cannot exist on the dry side because water is needed for growth. Hushpuppy even describes the hospital as “a fish tank with no water” and without water nothing can change and everything remains stagnant. It seems, though, that this is that the people of the dry side desire. They attempt to prolong life by “plugging people into the wall” and preventing them from passing through their own natural change to death. Hushpuppy is also subjected to this suffocation after she struggles to help her father and is then put into the only tight outfit she wears throughout the film. Her collar is even tight around her neck and it seems as though she is literally being suffocated by the society on the dry side.

After feeling the suffocation of attempted control of death and seeing the pain her father experienced in the hospital, Hushpuppy finally realizes that her father truly is going to die. In the shot in which Hushpuppy peers into her father’s hospital room, the frame’s edges are of the blurred curtain, cuing us to the fact that we are seeing exactly what Hushpuppy is seeing. Therefore we are fully aware of Hushpuppy’s being witness to the torture her father was put through in forcibly being kept alive.

With this acknowledgment of soon-to-be loss, Hushpuppy fears being left with no one and she finally seeks out her mother and finds her in a floating crab shack which is perhaps the most overt visual metaphor for ephemerality in the film. The music is disconnected with both the action in the scene and the film as a whole. We hear a jazz tune that seems to come from a distance and when the camera moves through the room to show what Hushpuppy is seeing, she looks over at the singers but there is a dissonance between what we see and what we hear. The jazz song is also very different in style to every other song in the soundtrack yet we have heard it once before during Hushpuppy’s imagined interaction with her mother. This exemplifies the fact that this moment in time, or this moment in the film, is dream-like and separated from the urgency that saturates all else that Hushpuppy has been subjected to thus far and yet provides a connection of this place to her mother. The blurry lights on the walls and the faded lighting of this scene also help to show this moment in time as dream-like, and therefore brief or ephemeral.

This is the place, however, where Hushpuppy finds her mother and, in doing so, comes to realize that although everything is transient, she will still always be permanently connected to “everything that made her.” We are given a narration through mental subjectivity of Hushpuppy’s flashback to her birth that serves to remind her of her most obvious connection with her father–his hand in her creation. Perhaps she needed to find a tangible connection with her mother in order to realize this ever-lasting connection she has with the universe… she had to find what made her to feel that connection.

This newfound support gives her strength to be one of the brave ones who “stay and watch” the passing of the life that made her. She also now has the strength to face these monsters, the aurochs–her fears of loss and abandonment–head on. In one of the few medium long shots, we are able to see the proportional difference between the aurochs and Hushpuppy, how the aurochs size is daunting in comparison with this small girl, emphasizing the immensity of all that she, and by extension we, have to face. A shot reverse shot of a close up of Hushpuppy’s face and the Aurochs’ eye serves to enhance our understanding of their connection, as they see eye to eye and we can no longer compare their differences in size.

This shot reverse shot is similar to that of the close up shots from Wink’s face to Hushpuppy’s face and back again as they have their final moment together. The similarity in editing makes it known that at least one of the challenges she must face is her dad’s passing. The eye line match between Wink and Hushpuppy does not simply create a continuity shot; it also deepens the connection between them. The intimate close up of their faces also serves to foster both a visual and an emotional connection between these characters’ emotions and the audience. Expressed through tears, “no cryin,’ ya hear?” elicits the deep emotional reaction that is brought about from the pain of losing a tangible connection with a loved one.

The close up shot of Wink’s hand wrapped around his daughter visualizes the culmination of their tumultuous relationship. At first the only moments in which these characters touched were aggressive, but now a tender moment finally arises and Hushpuppy is held for the third time in her life. The importance of this final connection is made clear through the camera’s focus on Wink’s hand. This is how Wink departs. He and Hushpuppy are physically connected, helping to solidify the realization that this relationship, and all connections, can transcend death.

Hushpuppy demonstrates the strength that arises from letting go of the objects, the monsters, and the fears, and finally feeling the interplay between transience and permanence in her final scene. From behind the flames, we observe her watching her father’s body float away and although the flames seem to lick at her face, she stands tall and does not falter. This is in great contrast to the scene in which she originally fears she has lost her father and calls out to him, for in this scene she fades in and out of focus, becoming so blurred at one point that she is barely recognizable as even human. Previously she feared this loss and felt that she may also disappear, however now, the camera’s focus does not falter. We watch Hushpuppy move forward with great strength through the water that begins to thrash at her feet and hear her explain that “the scientists of the future are gunna know, once there was a Hushpuppy and she lived in the bathtub with her daddy.” She will not disappear. In one way or another, she will live on, just as Wink lives on through her. No matter what changes occur, she is now aware of both her own transience and her space in eternity, enabling her, and the audience, to persist even while experiencing great fear, great change, and tremendous loss.