cassandra jenkins + grief

you're gone, you're everywhere

welcome back. if you’d like, check out the first post here. thanks for being here.

for this week, let’s listen, explore, and move to cassandra jenkins ambiguous norway.

i can’t remember if i was driving or taking a shower when i first heard this song. it felt like walking outside, already drenched and cold, to an even colder, pouring sky. the rain's coming down outside. it felt like wet jeans and long sleeves clinging to your skin. like warm tears and cleansing rain mixing in together: the salty and the fresh. there's still something in the air. it felt like heavy, heaving, clouding sobs throughout my body. i close my eyes. it felt like thick, unnerving, relieving stillness. it felt like laying down on your back in the middle of the street in the middle of this rainstorm in the middle of grief. no matter where i go, you're gone, you're everywhere.

i think i was showering. if i was, i know it was at my sister’s apartment. my older sister who is actually a cousin but every time we nonchalantly introduce one another as “that’s my sister” - a title we gave to each other after sharing the same home for nearly ten years in our desert landscape, with stunning sunsets and suffocating despairs, that we both grew up in and vowed to never return to; after existing as true sisters to one another, at one time. farewell, purple mountains.“that’s my sister” - a cemented understanding of who we are to one another even when it stopped feeling like it, even when we never changed the title. farewell, purple mountains. does she feel it too? her mother was my mother’s sister. her mother was my mother’s older sister. sometimes, i worry, i wonder, i know, i question if we are playing out their tense relationship in our relation to each other. does she feel it too? no matter where i go, you're gone, you're everywhere.

her shower is on the second story of a rent-controlled house that is at the bottom of wealthy montecito heights. it has an always-open window that looks out to a horizon of changing skies, quiet houses, and a single palm tree. i’ve rarely looked out this window without a friendly kind of somberness settling down in and on my chest, the tops of my shoulders, the creases of my elbows, the backs of my kneecaps, on top of my feet, through the strands of my hair. i see a range of cumulous. the majesty's transmutation. distant, ambiguous. this image is that of grief somehow too. even on hot summer days and evenings, this view felt and looked crisp, refreshing, a shallow breath of fresh air. i close my eyes. she has healthy, green plants hanging on her shower rod and their long vines play in the water by my side. this shower became a wet refuge of warmth and safe solitude for me. there's still something in the air. this was a shower of and for women. the steam would cleanse me, even when i didn’t want to be. the horizon would peer in on me and i at her, even when i would have nothing to say. nothing to say. for many years, i have felt like i’ve had nothing to say.

that’s the thought that led me to move to this song one night in my own van nuys apartment. in my own home, finally. a space that was mine and, because it was mine, it had the opportunity to be stable. how can i express, without words, the idea and the need to move forward while remembering: an essence of grief, of many, that i found myself struggling with this evening. no matter where i go, you're gone, you're everywhere. the contradictions that can exist within the many realities of existing, living, and surviving, grief included, have, for me, began to make a kind of sense when explored and asked within the body. i walk around alone, laughing in the street. the body can have the answers to burning questions because it itself has been living proof of the answers and the inquiries. the poetry, it's not lost on me. the body can move forward and remember. the body can weep and find calm. the body can be sure and be cautious. the body can be curious and hesitant. the body can wait, the body cannot.

but what does my body do? what does your body do?

after santa monica, my sister’s apartment served as a semi-permanent homebase my first year out in los angeles. it was also my first year post-grad and the first year of covid. i was grieving so many things. no matter where i go, you're gone, you're everywhere. i see her now. my grief. a grief i did not honor as much as it deserved to be honored. how does my body honor my grief? how does it see it, ignore it, nurture it? no matter where i go, you're gone, you're everywhere.

it’s been twenty two years since my older biological sister lost her best friend and her sole caretaker: our kind, perfectly imperfect mother. with her, went my family and came the title: ward of the court. it’s been nine years since my older brother died. it’s been nine years since the enduring of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. the grieving of an entire family i have never known, but was supposed to be mine; the grieving of pain that did not belong to me; the grieving of a secure childhood, of a safe adolescence; the grieving of a loss of innocence, of the becoming of my self without shame, instability, fear; the grieving of a reality enacted by hurting, grieving adults that should have never become my responsibility, that should have never affected my own growth as a child into a young adult; the grieving of everything i deserved as a human being. i close my eyes. it’s been six months since i have barely begun to hesitantly feel the safety and security that comes with a stable home, and not the endless anxiety of being left, being moved, of abandonment whether in thought, in word, in action. the poetry, it's not lost on me. to be abandoned in more ways than one as a child can feel like irreparable damage to the self. i think, when i heard this song, i was navigating the unfelt and unacknowledged pain. my own grief. i was getting to know her. i was ready to listen. i wanted to love her. you're gone, you're everywhere.

it can feel impossible to come to terms with your pain + your grief. can't seem to grasp what happened. i close my eyes. to understand its purpose in your life now. to befriend it. the damage can feel permanent. it is not. i promise you. grief is nuanced, painfully complicated, and it is not beyond survival. the majesty's transmutation. distant, ambiguous. i invite you to take a small step into your pain today: if you find yourself with the need to cry, be still, or move the body in a safe way, allow yourself to feel it through on your own. sit with the sadness, let the tears run through you with the sole purpose of simply listening, of simply observing, of simply seeing it. you do not have to understand it yet. i close my eyes. that, perhaps, we may never do. there are far too many losses and pains that’re so devastating and cruel, all rational understanding surpasses it. in those cases, you can see yourself and your body in the face of that senseless tragedy. i close my eyes. you can become acquainted with your self then and your self now. what did she need then that you can maybe give her now? what do you need now that no one gave you then? the skies replace the land with air.

after you feel you are done, call someone you love. step outside, whether it’s into the sun, under a raining sky, into a quiet, crisp neighborhood. you are here now.

this song came at a time in my life where i needed the permission, the words, the feeling to begin processing long-stored grief in my body and in my mind. the movement in this very short study is hesitant, calculated, unsure even. but it is me. it is the brief prologue of a kind of grief processing. it is also brave, curious, fearless. how can i extend and remain planted? how can i change facings and remain circular while grounded? how can i choose when to show my face? when do i choose to do so? how can i sit in my pain, let it pass through me, witness her and never stop moving the physical body? what does a still calm mind look like an ever-moving body?

groundedness and vulnerability have become a cornerstone value of living, existing, surviving for me. it is a second-by-second practice to keep these values integrated in my movement, in my actions, in my words, through my love. i like this thought of a practice: i am in practice. what is your practice? what was your practice that you find no longer serves your present reality? i am in a practice that is ever-flowing and ever-evolving within, in spite, and because of myself. i want to move and be still, be still and move. explore your practice. invest in your movement. be kind to yourself.

“our grief is our love” - terry tempest williams

i created yet another quiet, resilient joy. here’s to you creating the same.