Broken pieces can create wonders

We'll get to the significance of the post title in a few minutes. First, I promised an update on planning for my trip to the mountains.

I'm really glad I had the sense to plan to get out of town for what would have been our first anniversary (yes, I'll have a house sitter, so the place won't be abandoned), and I'm REALLY glad that I still have so much to do to get ready for the trip: in this the run up to our anniversary, the memories are coming so fast and hitting so hard that it's sometimes paralyzing. And every day gets a little harder, so being anywhere-but-here is definitely the smart move.

Yesterday was very productive. I finished my grocery list, ordered my groceries for pickup when I get into the town where I'll be staying, ordered cat food to get Marmalade and Houdini through the two weeks I'll be away - and a car harness for Kellogg so he'll be clipped in to the seatbelt while we're on the road, ordered booze for the trip (beer, a bottle of Woodford Reserve, and Baileys to put in my coffee on our anniversary). I also ordered cigars, because what could be more relaxing than sitting out on the deck with a nice bourbon and cigar? Finally, I put together a list of questions about the cabin and sent that out (and already got a response with answers to all my questions, so yay for responsive customer service). I made some more progress on my shopping list, set up a staging area in my bedroom for everything I need to bring with me (I'm still not sleeping in there, so might as well use it for something, amirite?), and started packing.

Oh, and I watched the Vols trounce Missouri, so that was nice. 

Today, I'll have to do all the housework I didn't do in the evenings after work last week. One of the really frustrating effects of grief is the all-encompassing exhaustion. It used to be that, if I had a particularly challenging day at work, I could pivot from the heavy cognitive work and do something else. Now? If I have a day at work that uses up all my intellectual reserves, it doesn't just deplete my capacity for heavy thinking; it wears me out completely. Last week was very heavy in cognitive work - with a few pieces of troubling news sprinkled in for good measure - and so the evenings were pretty much lost time.

Now, let's talk about that post title: As y'all are aware, for reasons I do not know (and am beginning to regret), I decided to participate in OctPoWriMo. But I'm not just writing and submitting my own stuff; I'm reading other people's submissions as well. I do not think of myself as a poet by any stretch of the imagination; some of the other participants, however, are the Real Deal. 

Case in point: Payal Agarwal, who writes at https://colorsofthefall.blogspot.com/. I discovered her when I read her first submission on October 1, and I've since bookmarked her site so I can go back and read her older stuff. She's a beautiful writer, and her OctPoWriMo submission for yesterday was breathtaking. Please go read it.

That last line has stuck with me: Broken pieces can create wonders. I burst into tears as soon as I read it. And every time it comes to my mind, I start crying again. I cry partly because the imagery is so beautiful, and partly because I know it's true - especially because she literally used a piece of broken charcoal in the visual art piece she created as part of the exercise. But mostly I cry because... I am full of broken pieces; I myself am broken.

Can a broken person create wonders? Intellectually, I know it's possible; hell, the tortured artist is an archetype. But can this broken person create wonders? And does it even matter if I can? So what if all this suffering is going to lead me to some creative tsunami that will somehow move someone else? Is that a fair trade? Maybe for the people who are moved by the stuff I create, but I don't know that it'll do much for me. Yes, I realize that's selfish. No, I'm not going to feel bad about that: I'm not so consumed by my "art" (in quotes because not an artist) that I'm willing to live a life of misery for the sake of it; I'm no Hemingway, y'know?

The thing is, though, I think I'm too broken to create wonders anyway; my efforts to create are borne out of desperation; I paint (very badly), draw (very, very badly), play music, and write out of a frenzied need to get out the thoughts and feelings that rage inside me like a tornadic pyrocumulonimbus. Anything I've created since Doug died is the emotional equivalent of projectile vomiting.

I've experienced plenty of bad times in my 55 years. But never before have I felt broken beyond repair; never before have I felt as though the future holds no hope; never before have I been consistently sad and angry and lost for so very long and with no end in sight.

Broken pieces can create wonders. I wish I could believe that.