Natalie
Yes, Rebecca?

Rebecca
Will you go there with me?

Natalie
I will. I’m ready. Let’s do this.

Rebecca
Ok, so as I was saying, I think about grief and sadness a lot. I think when I have to write an artist’s statement for various things, grief is usually the first theme I offer up as part of my repertoire of themes.

Natalie
Do they ask for that? Like do they say, “So what do you generally write about?”

Rebecca
Yeah, sometimes you’re asked to tell your themes.

Natalie
And that’s where you go.

Rebecca
I was trying to think about this. Pre-Violet’s surgery (so seven years ago), I feel this particular grief started, when we had gotten the news about her heart — it just changed my world. That, “Oh, life can be this, and now it’s this.” So life is way more fragile than I thought it was. But even before that, I wonder — I think even before that, I was thinking about sadness and grief in my art. I’ve always been drawn to characters who are sad, but funny, but sad. What do you think? What say you about who I am at my core?

Natalie
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think that you’re that different than certainly many characters that exist in literature. I mean, there are a lot of characters who are sad, and then funny, and then sad. I think that we have a proclivity to sadness as human beings at some level, because there’s lots to be sad about.

Rebecca
And we’re Irish.

Natalie
And we’re Irish. I mean, The Troubles are called The Troubles because there are lots of sad people who have been faced with much angst in a country divided for so long. It makes a lot of sense. And I mean, we just live in a really broken, sad world. Buffalo happened just recently, and the craziness of the horror of that situation is that I think that was like number 200 in 2022 of mass shootings in America. That was 200, or it was like 196 and then there were four more after it. That’s how crazy the world is.

Rebecca
From that perspective, if you think about it like that, don’t we all have a responsibility to be sad all the time?

Natalie
That is an interesting statement to make, because in some communities of thought — in philosophy, in black studies, you’ll find that one of the responsibilities and resistances is to actually look to joy, because there is so much sadness. So no, I don’t think that is necessarily…

Rebecca
So I could be taking up joy as resistance more?

Natalie
Yes, that is a way.

Rebecca
Interesting.

Natalie
But if you’re saying that this is a theme that shows up for you in your art, then I feel like we are definitely moving down a very interesting road here in terms of…

Rebecca
Just a heaviness — like sometimes I would just want to cry. Like right now, I think I could, even though this is a nice morning and we’re at the farm together, and I was planting yesterday. But just saying the word ‘grief’ and staring out that tree (because now we’re in the car, everyone — we tried to record in the house, but everyone got up for coffee, just as we hit record).

Natalie
Really early today, I don’t know why.

Rebecca
So then we moved with our microphone, and we did a little dance out to the car. So now I have a really good view of this tree. Nat, stare with me.

Natalie
The broken tree we’re talking about, that got taken down in the wind — is that what that is?

Rebecca
I guess it’s kind of… off-kilter?

Natalie
Or are you looking at the really alive tree next to it?

Rebecca
No, I’m looking at the…

Natalie
I’m not sure which one.

Rebecca
Where am I going with this? Ok, the other part that interests me is I’ve really gotten into Couples Therapy, that show on Crave, and the therapist is so good. She was listening to these couples discuss their issues, as therapists do, and she was then going to her own therapist to unpack her work, and commenting that these couples — there’s so much weight on their relationships from their individual sorrows and pasts, and that really intimate relationships have to bear a lot. So I was even thinking of Simon, all that he bears — I mean, I bear things too, so whatever. But just in terms of this grief, I’m a grief-laden person. My sorrows, our relationship, he has to bear them. So there’s some weight there, and that we come into these relationships with our issues. Although — ok, I don’t know if grief is an issue, so I’m sort of talking around this. I mean, he does have to bear it, but at the same time, is someone who experiences a lot of grief — is it an issue? It feels like it’s an issue in our culture, because then I’ve been reading various articles. In The New York Times, there’s a recent article on grief.

Natalie
Ok, but wasn’t there something that, in your Couples Therapy piece, that there had been an end point?

Rebecca
She was saying that both parties have to transcend their own feelings, basically, if they want a relationship to survive. So there needs to be a lot of will.

Natalie
And that definitely strikes me, because I think there’s something interesting here. You’ve just said that Si bears some sort of a burden, in terms of what you’re calling your grief. I would say that you’ve borne much in terms of your relationship together, too. There’s very much a bearing of, but then there’s also this will that that therapist is talking about. I find those two words together, of grief and will, really interesting. A pairing, like wine — like when you put wine and food together, something about the individual items is enhanced. So is there something about pairing the authentic grief of a moment in time with the will to work through it together as a relationship — that somehow makes the whole thing more beautiful, more manageable? I would then extend that outside of relationship to even what we just finished saying about there’s a lot to be sad about in the world. There’s a lot to grieve, but there’s a lot of beauty that comes from groups coming together and…

Rebecca
The will to overcome?

Natalie
Yes, and to bear it together, and to do something with that grief in a way that changes it maybe into something bigger, more malleable.

Rebecca
Productive?

Natalie
Yeah, maybe productive. I’m a little bit weary of that word, because if it has to be going from feeling to doing, I’m not sure that the doing is what I want to celebrate. In that I’m such a doer, I’m not sure that that is necessarily the way to be. But there’s something about being in a feeling together that maybe makes that feeling more powerfully rendered into something.

Rebecca
Being in a feeling together, although it seems to work better if everyone’s in the same feeling.

Natalie
Yeah. That’s the hard part, isn’t it.

Rebecca
Because I am a very slow metabolizer of grief, and Simon’s very fast, and we have talked about that before. So him and I getting to that productive place — because even this week, I was in the playground, and I caught sight of Violet’s scar, and I felt like an animal freezing in the headlights. I was like, “Am I about to have a wave of grief?” And then it passed, and I was ok. I was thinking, “I feel safe, it’s ok.” Simon, if I said that to him now, he’d be like, “I don’t have any of that.” You know?

Natalie
Yeah.

Rebecca
Like, that passed for me much quicker.

Natalie
I’m hearing you describe that moment. It’s kind of amazing that you are able to name that feeling so explicitly — you could actually pinpoint a feeling in your body like that. Does that come from your really dedicated practice to listening to yourself, like you’re trained to do that?

Rebecca
Are you asking that for real?

Natalie
I’m wondering. I don’t think a lot of people have that. I don’t think a lot of people are that attuned.

Rebecca
To what they’re feeling?

Natalie
Yeah, 100% — and how much better the world might be if more people were that attuned, or certainly more attuned than they are.

Rebecca
Or we’d be so sad.

Natalie
No, I don’t think so. I really don’t. I really think that is part of what is the biggest problem — that I see, anyways. Certainly as I wander around in a high school, watching young people who are developing the language for their feelings, and they’re developing that language in a space that is full of so many adults who, I don’t know, I definitely don’t believe that all of the adults in that building are able to fully name where they’re at. Now, albeit because we’re all in such reactionary mode all the time in education — it’s like, “Deal with this, band-aid that, whatever whatever.” But I’m not sure how much good modeling is happening for what it means to feel and then name how that feeling is impacting what I’m doing, and how to move through it and forward. Anyways, I go back to: that’s why we need art. That’s why we need books, literature, and film.

Rebecca
Because they name things for us?

Natalie
I think so. Because not everybody has your vocabulary to really pinpoint the necessity for grief in your body, but also then what it’s doing to you, for you, at that moment, and then how to even be on the other side of it. Because it’s interesting here — I think that lots of people are suffering, and I think that what literature does for us is that it provides a window into how there is so much suffering and grief that is ongoing. I think that fiction, in its ability to show us ourselves, or even just know how to talk about it — we’re supposed to be having an author on here soon whose stories I’ve studied with my students. I remember in one class, there’s a story that we read that I started crying, and I think because I started crying in the reading of that story, then other students start crying. But I don’t think they were just crying because I was crying — I think they already felt the sadness from the story, but then they saw this adult model that it was ok to cry, so then you have half the class going, “Hoo, hoo,” and wiping their tears, and I think it was a pretty healthy moment in the end. I think it was a safe enough space that we could do that in. But the story allowed some underpinnings of grief that many of the students shared with me later that they had experienced — one had lost her father, and one had lost a really close aunt just recently, and so these various losses and griefs were somehow made more present because of this text that we were studying as a group. So there was something in that that I think was made possible, which was beautiful. I don’t know, I just think that that grief stuff does seep into almost every storyline, because it is so inherently human. Thus, as much as we feel potentially alone in a hard moment, I think that points us towards the reality that we’re not alone.

Rebecca
I can feel alone as a creator sometimes, but the end result of the art might be really doing something — or we know it’s doing something powerful.

Natalie
Mm-hmm. I also think, just back to your point about, “Well then everybody could be sitting around sad, maybe we should be sitting around sad,” but not everybody’s safe to feel sad feelings — in our body, in that we are animals, and so there’s a fight-or-flight element to who we are. If someone is unhoused, or in an emotionally damaged relationship, or whatever ends up being the thing that’s making them feel unsafe, they might simply just be in reactionary mode. Whereas it’s pretty amazing how the feelings that we have when we’re able to touch base with our grief point to other things being met, so that we can actually sit in that — I think.

Rebecca
If you feel safe enough in your life.

Natalie
To feel.

Rebecca
Then you can feel safe to grieve.

Natalie
I think so.

Rebecca
Right, which is interesting, because I’m reading this book called Untangled about teen girls. One of the points the author is making is that teens need to feel safe to push back against their parents — to be rude, because they’re experimenting with pushing boundaries. But that teens who don’t feel safe won’t do it, and that will hinder their development and their individuation in the world. So if they feel their parent needs them as a friend, is relying on them in an unhealthy way, then they won’t push back. I found that really interesting. I’m not saying they need to grieve, but I’m saying they need to feel safe in order to feel their whole range of feelings. So it’s just interesting — it speaks to: yes, you need to feel safe to have all these feelings. And Violet sitting at the piano, oh my gosh, we had another piano moment where she was…

Natalie
Oh no. Or, oh yes.

Rebecca
Oh yes. I love it. It’s so beautiful and wonderful. She was getting frustrated, she called me in for help, and then I started to get frustrated because as soon as I start to help her…

Natalie
Then she doesn’t want the help?

Rebecca
Well, she does like two notes and then sits and bemoans how hard it is. So we were having a moment together, and then she started to cry, and I was getting upset, and then she’s like, “But it’s ok to cry, right?” And I’m just crying!

Natalie
Oh, I love that.

Rebecca
Yes, it is. But it’s hard. I think that’s what I’m — when I was reacting to your point — is that all of these things are true, but it doesn’t feel good to feel sad. That’s the struggle I have internally. I celebrate grief, it’s a theme I want to explore. But, you know, I’d rather be on a beach playing in the sand — I think.

Natalie
You think. That’s an interesting caveat to add in. But maybe it goes back to the characters you’ve said you’ve liked in literature — like you want them to have…

Rebecca
I want them to bounce around.

Natalie
They want to bounce between sadness and joy. Isn’t that actually, potentially, an ideal mix?

Rebecca
Just the right amount of — it’s the cocktail? Actually, where’s our morning cocktail, Nat?

Natalie
It’s called coffee, and I need my second. So there is something in that.

Rebecca
And also just speaking to the loneliness — you’re saying, “Yes, we need art, because people have trouble naming their emotions and stuff,” but it is kind of a lonely place to exist when you do tap into your emotions. Because sometimes I feel like an alien, and I bring this alien energy into a room where I’m like, “Right, what are all the big things we’re all feeling in here?” I feel like that would be my ideal, to be able to say that. “What are you feeling?”

Natalie
You know, I don’t know. It’s an interesting one. I really feel like you hit at the crux of really big challenges with being in the world with people. We are fed by being with people, but if you actually walked into a room and really were able to say that, I’m not sure you (certainly me) would want to actually hear all the answers.

Rebecca
But would we not want to hear the answers because the answers would be out of touch with themselves? Or you’re saying that if people, even if they were, you’d get this potpourri of emotions? Or it would just get really ugly? What are you thinking?

Natalie
I’m trying to ponder this. I feel like, to go back to our Irishness, the thing about an Irish wake would be that everybody comes together to grieve and celebrate the life of one person that’s been lost. So it’s about everybody grieving, but for this one thing. And so that, I think, is like an ultimate example of grief in community working well. But when things get really big — so like the grief of a global pandemic, the grief-inducing nature of this massive pandemic that nobody had been through before, all these big feelings that nobody could really truly name as they were happening because they morphed and changed. I don’t think we’ve seen necessarily the beauty of humanity play out in the midst of the pandemic. For me, I’ve observed a lot of ugliness in terms of people’s grief, because I think there’s been a real turn inward to the self, as opposed to that Irish wake idea of turning outward to remember and celebrate and grieve a person who was lost.

Rebecca
But is it because people don’t know what they’re feeling?

Natalie
It could be that they don’t know what they’re feeling. But it also could be that there’s been a move that’s been inherently self-focused, and back to that thing of not feeling safe — and so then everybody, kind of fight-or-flight mode, turns inward.

Rebecca
So you can know what you’re feeling, but to decide you’re still not going to transcend those feelings to…

Natalie
A greater good, any sort of a care for the community at large. I don’t know — just the idea of walking into a room and being able to go, “How’s everybody feeling?” — the responses back might not be so community-oriented, and that would make me feel a little bit sad.

Rebecca
So maybe I’m dreaming of some utopia.

Natalie
Yeah, but I like your dream, because I think it’s a good goal. I think the idea of having a goal to want to engage with people about their grief, their joy, about their whatever — these various big feelings — I think is still a good goal. But there is risk.

Rebecca
There’s definitely risk — and both of us, we’ve had friendships and experiences where people have turned away from us, really, I think, for…

Natalie
Naming things?

Rebecca
Yeah, for naming things, for…

Natalie
Or even publicly — for me, it often goes back to my having gone through my divorce in a way that it was public enough. People could see, and wanted to turn away from the honesty of that, I guess.

Rebecca
Well, I think if we see that we’ve come to a place where we see our emotions fairly clearly, it also means we can see other people fairly clearly and people don’t want…

Natalie
Necessarily to be seen?

Rebecca
To be seen. I keep thinking if one of our friends is listening — didn’t she laugh at us at one point? She was like, “Oh, you think you know yourselves?”

Natalie
Oh, yeah. So now you’re doubting it?

Rebecca
I say that, but I would love to hear her response to what we don’t see clearly — which, for sure we don’t. We have blinders.

Natalie
Oh, yeah. All the time.

Rebecca
What’s an ongoing grief for you, Nat?

Natalie
It’s funny — no, it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all. But I think an ongoing grief for me is — here’s me saying I want it to be about community, and I don’t like that inkling that we all have to head towards just ourself.

Rebecca
Which is a way, interestingly, that you’re a lot like mom.

Natalie
Ok, yeah. I can see that. I am my mother’s daughter.

Rebecca
And I’m holding your wrist.

Natalie
As you say this.

Rebecca
As you say it.

Natalie
Hold me, Rebecca.

Rebecca
No, it’s a good thing — but she really balks at self-care, right? It’s really only now at 70 that she’s really considering it more. I don’t think we’re balking at self care. That’s not what we’re saying at all. But I think the potential shadow side to that could be that you’re not taking care of yourself.

Natalie
Yes. So in your question then, I think I am taking care of myself in terms of this ongoing grief for me — in that I am constantly, I’m finding over the last few years, in a state of contemplation, anyway. Is it grief, necessarily? Is it just a shadow of grief, but related to our cousin’s death? She died by suicide, and I feel like her death was one that really hit me because I was so happy in so many ways that she was now at peace, and now at rest, and not having to suffer. And at the same time (here’s the turn away from community into myself) why have I now spent so many years writing about care and collegiality? And I think it’s been because I’ve been constantly navigating back to almost a feeling of regret. So therefore, I’m tying regret and grief together about what I didn’t quite do enough for her. And even if it wasn’t for her, for those suffering like her. For the lonely, the sad. But then as we said at the beginning of this conversation, that could be everybody, so then there’s the overwhelming nature of like, “Oh, my gosh, who do I care for first?” And so the easiest place would be to start with myself, because if I can care for myself, then I can better care for others — and so then it’s just like a cyclone of feeling. So it’s an ongoing grief in me, her departure, because I feel like that exit…

Rebecca
Like you could have done more?

Natalie
Mm-hmm. In an ongoing way, not that it would have stopped what happened — but why is it that when the person is gone is when all of a sudden there’s this move towards doing?

I thought we were talking about your grief. Then I’m sitting in my car, crying.

Rebecca
Well, I mean, I think it speaks to: there’s so much loneliness and pain, and our limited capacity to keep meeting it. That’s what I hear. You know, you can’t meet everyone’s.

Natalie
Well, I had asked you earlier, when we were going forward with this conversation, prepping for it.

Rebecca
Even though it seems like it’s gone crazy. Does this conversation seem like it went crazy?

Natalie
Well, I mean, everything that we had written down for ourselves to guide it, things have moved in maybe different directions. — but I think that we’ve hit on all the points we wanted to work through. But one of them I had said to you earlier was (and I’d written in the document), like, “Do you want to change?” Like, do you want to change this part of yourself that is ‘grief forward’?

Rebecca
I really like that.

Natalie
Like that wine. I think it’s ‘fruit forward’ — this is ‘grief forward.’

Rebecca
Yes — that’s the best description of me. I feel so seen right now, Nat. Let’s just stare into each other’s eyes. I don’t know, and that makes me sad, actually. Because it’s weird: do I want to change that part of myself? That’s such a good question.

Natalie
There’s this video on TikTok right now — everybody’s using it and applying this guy’s words to their pets. So they’re doing montages of their pets in crazy situations, and all you hear is this man going, “I’m a beautiful disaster,” and, “Bless this mess,” and it’s such a wonderful little…

Rebecca
About the pet?

Natalie
About himself, but people have now taken this three or four lines and they’ve applied it to pet montages, of pets covered in mud or whatever. And it’s basically just like, “Bless this mess.” There’s something at the heart of it that obviously people have related to, because there is just a recognition of us all being beautiful disasters.

Rebecca
Right.

Natalie
And when I had written that in the document, you were like, “Yeah, but it’s not fun to walk around like a mess,” and then that prompted me to ask you, “Well, so then do you want to change?” But now I’m hearing you saying everything you shared today, and I’m like, “I don’t want you to change,” because your grief forward way in the world inspires…

Rebecca
What, what does it inspire? Are you inspired? Are you inspired to be grief forward?

Natalie
No, but I do think it inspires deeper introspection, and feeling — and my God, that’s what we need in a world that can be so out of touch with emotion, because so many people are in fight-or-flight mode. So how amazing it would be if we could all get to a little bit deeper, and hit a place where we could feel, because maybe that would lead us to feeling with each other a little more. Then maybe if we felt sad with each other, maybe that would actually lead towards more and more opportunity for joy together.

Rebecca
Yeah. Sometimes I do feel that because I’m like, “Are we really going to be this superficial with one another, and feel like that’s all there can be?”

Natalie
So grief forward paired with…

Rebecca
Will? There was will.

Natalie
Will, yup.

Rebecca
A will to engage.

Natalie
And a gratefulness for the safety to be able to feel those things — I think that’s a big deal. I can walk away from this conversation recognizing that I have a safe space in you, to be able to talk through.

Rebecca
In this car.

Natalie
In this car, I am so contained. There’s really nowhere to go, and that’s a good thing.

Rebecca
Ok, I love you.

Natalie
I love you.

Rebecca
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