(5) On losing
Here’s a thing: since early childhood, we have been taught how to gain, win, achieve. How obtaining is the ultimate goal. Of everything, really. How our actions should be aimed towards what we can get as a result. And I do think it’s beautiful. How it steers towards ambition and how the notion of possible achievements can make one feel powerful, or at least motivated. It is, after all, what this world is build on. It’s not about physical possession, not only. It’s about everything else too. To get, to attain, to acquire, to find, to hold and close in the palm of your hand forever- that’s the way to progress in life.
But nothing is forever and existence of one implies the existence of other. And the other would, in this case, be loss. As equal. Anything that can be gained can as well be lost. Undeniable, simplest of truths. And yet, how challenging to understand it. How everyone has some idea of how to approach obtaining things, how to feel when one finds themself in possession of more, let that be a promotion, new friends, new lover, new furniture, new skills. Anything. It’s easy to accept and welcome. And then there’s loss, idea of which is inherently present anytime there’s a gain. How to lose is not something anyone teaches. Losing always feels raw. Losing is unsolved.
Something that happened to me quite recently: I am working on a thesis on New York School poets and have applied for a research grant, which would include going to the city and being provided an access to some really special archives. Think Frank O’Hara’s manuscripts and letters and all that. I wrote a lengthy proposal, collected recommendation letters. Besides that: I wouldn’t stop talking about it, planned my entire, month-long stay already, told everyone not to make any plans including me in September, because I’ll be gone, I’ll be spending days flipping through almost century-old papers, taking notes, learning just so so much that I couldn’t learn otherwise, and spending nights drinking classic highballs at a bar in Brooklyn, chatting up New Yorkers, making new friends. I claimed that I would just simply die if I didn’t get the grant.
And I didn’t get it. The reason: current tensions and uncertainties with issuing US visas for foreign researchers.
So I didn’t die. I wasn’t even particularly sad, rather angry, perhaps. I don’t know. I spent so much of time thinking and planning that the idea of New York in Fall was ever present in everything I did these days. It was hardly a new experience to be disappointed, but one that made me recalibrate my thinking towards achievements and goals.
Because I, as many others, was primed to always achieve, rarely lose. To always have a step forward, ready to take. To have doubts, sure, but to try to silence them out and not think like that. Don’t say that. You will get it. For sure.
I see how this can be a good way to live. I even employ it myself sometimes- or I wish I would- to just be delusional, blindly believe in yourself, your abilities, your luck. I think it’s powerful and compelling to not exhibit any disbelief that something might not work out the way it was planned.
But here’s the point I’m trying to make: why is the notion of not getting what was wanted treated as something inherently bad, when it’s a real, valid part of life?
The grant I didn’t get; that’s okay. I still do have to finish my thesis, and I still do have already quite a vast knowledge about New York School of poets and painters. I still tend to brag about it more often than necessary. That being said, there’s so much I don’t know yet, and maybe never will- despite my really rich personal library that I love, consisting of archival volumes I have collected and studied over the years, sometimes going to crazy lengths to find them. I still have my passion and curiosity and sensibility, which ultimately is what makes me interested and able to research. I’m not trying to say that the key is to look for the positives in every situation. Rather, what I mean, is that not getting something more doesn’t take away the very basis of who we are and what we already have; of why we do what we do.
***
But I would lie if I said there isn’t that kind of loss that raises questions about who we are, after all. That feels like the world has shaken and rearranged and it’s not easy to find your way around, again.
I think about it when I lay in bed with someone I really love and feel truly bonded to. These visceral kind of feelings. And it’s exquisite. Getting to know someone so well. Everyday on your mind. Ever present. Seven calls a day, if we are somewhere apart. Anything that happens, he gets to know first. Or I get to know first. We share a life, after all. It’s just the best. No doubt.
Do I remember who I was before? I would hope so. Or maybe not- because to be loved is to be changed. Isn’t that right? To be together is to give up a part of your independence. It’s letting someone else introduce a different order into your life. One that includes togetherness. Where there’s someone else’s coffee in your favorite cup. One duvet, two sets of towels. Being asked what do you think of that on daily basis. Hand to grip on a night walk back home. Random moment that feels profound. Like, a singular hair found in between pages of a book you’re reading. Asking which shoes do I wear tonight. Then also, waiting. Lots of waiting. Till he finishes work. Till I come back. Till its the right time. Laughing and thinking, this one I will remember forever, only to forget what it was a couple hours later. That’s okay, a new moment like this will come soon enough. What a gift; to know that such happiness can be recurring.
I see myself as very fortunate to have found a person I can count on, day to day. To always have someone to tell when something funny or dreadful or whatever happens. It feels rare. It’s something I dreamed of since I can remember. Something I always knew I have to try to find, or rather, build. I never thought about how with any attempt at giving and accepting love comes inevitable possibility of loss- I cared about finding, having. If it doesn’t work out, move on, the faster the better. Because it was not an option to just lose. No time to embrace this certain kind of emptiness, to accept the feelings- of being lost, of solitude, of being changed at the core.
I try to teach myself the idea that despite feeling overwhelming love for the place I am in my life, this is hardly the last thing I will feel; it’s hardly the end of this story. I’d really want it to be permanent; it might not be. I have no way of knowing it now. Whichever way it goes, it will come with it’s own losses. Could be independence or singularity. Could be feelings shared with someone. There’s a haiku by Mizuta Masahide I think about often:
Since my house burned down
I now have a better view
of the rising moon
***
Some months ago, my dad, my brother and I were in the car, on the way to a funeral. It was a two-ish hour drive. I really needed a bathroom break, so we stopped by a local mall. It was a Tuesday morning. The mall felt like a liminal space of sorts. Just so empty. I imagine the three of us looked like some secret agents, hollywood film style, dressed in all black. I wore high heels that made a loud noise against the shiny beige tiles. My sunglasses were on all day. It all felt like a kind of dream sequence. Not how l pictured that day at all.
As I waited for my companions, I walked into a store; I wanted to buy myself something to drink. Obviously, there wasn’t anyone besides me there. I stood before a large refrigerator, full with various sodas and juices. It’s quiet buzzing filled the space. I remember tears in my eyes- it wasn’t just the funeral, it was the emptiness of the mall, the weirdness of the situation, the coldness of February that followed you even inside, the elegance of my heels that felt just so stupid against the fridge, the colors that felt so intense compared to my black outfit, and the singular sales assistant that stared me down. I finally reached for a vividly colored blue sports drink. Something I never buy. I figured the pretty color was somewhat cheerful, somewhat well suited to all of that strangeness. I sat on a bench in the middle of the mall and sipped my drink. And cried, and waited. When my dad and brother came back, one of them, I don’t really remember, asked why would I buy such a gross drink. And then demanded a sip. It’s just a really dumb memory I have from that day.
Later we finally reached the destination, not without getting lost. Being at a funeral; the most obvious, most ultimate symbol of loss. It always feels so profound. Surreal, too.
There’s no need for me to try to search for some deeper meaning in that. But there’s one thing I know; grief, while painful, it can also act as something like a rudder. It reminds me of what I have, and where I got it from. It steers me towards recognizing a legacy someone left in my life; in me. Towards gratitude and clarity. I remember a particular sentence from a speech given at that funeral, about so much love being left behind. Love that has manifested itself in so many different ways, that sometimes only grieving, in all its hardship, allows to recognize. Behind all the layers of pain, in grief there is the most precious thing to be found. A memory that stays forever. Lives on.
And there’s nothing to gain from it. Perhaps only the lesson that loss is not worth running away from.
***