Going Left
āIn a quarter mile, turn left onto Blakely Street,ā Google Mapsā narrator instructed.
My grandparentsā house is to the right. I was there only an hour before, saying my goodbyes before meeting my parents and sister for lunch. My spouse and I were headed back to the airport in our rental car, toddler chirping in the backseat.
Iād already run back in the house once, crying, for another hug and another goodbye.
āIf I asked you to go right instead of left...?ā I thought out loud.
āI would,ā my spouse agreed.
āBut it wouldnāt change anything, would it?ā And I was crying again.
āIs there anything you havenāt said? That youād do differently?ā
I shook my head.
āThen no, it wouldnāt.ā
āTurn left onto Blakely Street,ā Google Maps said when we got to the corner, and I didnāt argue.
ā
My grandmother is dying. Not in the vague sense, but in the hospice care sense. My spouse and I had been planning to go back to visit where I grew up in the nebulous future, when there was money and time and and andā¦
And then there was no more time, so we blew the tax refund and what little vacation time Iāve earned on it.
In between family visits, I took my spouse on a whirlwind tour of Places That Mattered To Me. The library that shaped how I imagine libraries. The comic book store where the owner still knows my name after all these years. So many streets that look exactly the same as they did twenty years ago, when I was swearing Iād leave town and never look back.
I didnāt get into my feeds all weekend, so it wasnāt until today that I saw Alexās Undoing and Reforming. In a long and beautifully-written post, the line āI have continually been directed to look at the things I keep tucked away in my emotional and spiritual closet and donāt want to look at.ā resonated with me because of all the sorting I did over the weekend, and the way it echoed the KonMari process.
Undoing and ReformingThere was actual sorting of things that had been mine that were still at my parentsā house. I brought back childhood photos and some of my other grandmotherās buttons. There has been an ongoing sorting process, back to when I started Project Protagonist, where I went through what I believed as a child to see what was true. But Iāve done very little work sorting through what my parents gave me, and the shape my childhood has given my life. It was strange to have a spouse there watching me interact with my family, letting me unpack the conversations later.
Iām not sure how much of this KonMari can, or should, be shared in public. But itās part of the process, and itās affecting how my other sorts are going. My feelings about Loki in particular (and Odin to some degree) and how present they are in my life have changed drastically in the last month or so. KonMari only works if you drag everything out and lay hands on all of it. Laying hands on everything has turned out to be harder than I thought in every category, from the physical (I still havenāt found those fucking bone runes) to my feelings on the gods, to the looming question of ancestor work, to what I want to do with my life.
Everything is upended and Iām just trying to keep all the plates from hitting the ground, I think. Iāve always said I donāt believe in regrets, and Iām being tested. But regret requires there to be something Iād do differently, and Iāve always known I had to leave the place I grew up. I love my family; I tie myself in knots over it, even when they drive me crazy or get my pronouns wrong. I love my grandmother, and I had the opportunity to tell her, and so I have no regrets. Just⦠sadness.
Eventually things will settle, but thatās not the comfort it would be in other circumstances. In the meantime, I have another closet I need to figure out how to empty.
Going West
My grandmother passed away earlier this week.
When we were first discussing the visit to see her, we had planned to wait until April, when things were a little simpler. Going in March was a lot more effort in terms of logistics and also somewhat more expensive, but once I had the thought that I should go in March, I couldnāt shake it. Iām not psychic, but I think every life has a few moments like that in it.
Now I light candles for her, and I watch and re-watch the videos I took when we were there. Itās not much, but my child will know she met her great grandmother. I took the little cat figures she gave me away from the shelf they were on, and put them up with my other grandparentsā funeral cards, with my other grandmotherās buttons and my grandfatherās army knife.
While I was definitely pagan when my momās parents passed (fifteen or so years ago now) I didnāt have any kind of ancestor practice at the time. I had a basic one when my cousin Rachel passed a few years ago, but her death was difficult for me to process in ways that made it difficult to reach out to her as an ancestor. This is the first time Iāve had to navigate the idea of it while actively mourning.
I kept wanting to think about the mechanics of it during March, and then pushing it aside. Iām a planner, so itās normal for me to go āokay, if X then Yā but this felt morbid. And then the time finally came and I was too numb to do anything but the most basic things.
Itāll be some time anyway, before Iām ready for an ancestor relationship. Right now itās just about honoring her life and what she taught me. I expect thereās a period of transition? Iām honestly not sure of the mechanics. Time is meaningless, so maybe it doesnāt matter, but I feel like it does. Anybody have any suggestions based on experience?
In the meantime, Iāll talk to Hekate and Persephone, and keep myself busy, and work on⦠well, I have quite a few things to work on. Iām still numb sometimes, and sad sometimes. Itās getting better, I think, and I know itās normal. Iāll get there.
If youāre going through hell, keep going. So here I go.
Calling My Yaya
Today is my Yayaās birthday. She would have been 85 today.
On the ancestor altar, she is represented by a tiny set of ceramic cats she let me have years ago.
Iāve written about her in bits and pieces. She took care of me as a small kid when my parents were working, and on school breaks and snow days until I was old enough to stay by myself. She taught me to hand sew, and thus I think about her when I embroider now. I used to make little pouches and dolls out of her rags.
She and my grandfather bought a small house and stayed there, in a small city that grew into a medium suburb. When I was a kid, all sort of stores were within a few blocks walk and the really *fancy* ones like the Woolworthās were only a bus ride away. Time and the economy have chipped away most of the places she used to take me as a kid, but the lessons remain. I live in a walkable neighborhood now, and I knew I wanted that a long time ago.
She taught me to ride public transportation; she never drove. Being comfortable getting around on buses from a young age gave me a lot of independence. As a teenager I was able to take summer classes at the University near that old Woolworthās. When I studied overseas, I was unafraid, even eager to conquer the public transit system there and get around on my own.
Tonight I tried a couple of times to tell stories about her to Bug. Itās always hard to tell how much sheās taking in, but thereās plenty of time in the future.
I brought down one of the little ceramic cats, the black one, and set it on the working altar. I lit candles.
Bug wanted me to āturn on all the candlesā and I had to explain to her that there were enough.
I asked my Yaya to help me take care of my Bug, the way sheād helped raise me and my sister, my cousins and my niece. I could use the guidance, and Bug can use all the help I can get her. I miss her a lot, but I also feel like sheās listening.
Our conversations used to be a lot of silence too, in person and on the phone. Lots of stopping and thinking, I guess.
I still think about going left, and whether I had anything else to say to her, but even tonight, or last year on Samhain, I feel like itās more silence than poetry. Our relationship wasnāt complicated: I love her, she loves me, she cared for me, she taught me. She let me *be* and didnāt ask questions, so I didnāt feel like I didnāt know how to answer. She let me play my weird little one person imaginary games in the yard, or lock myself in her room when my sister was driving me crazy in the afternoon. If I hid out in the attic, or spent the morning scribbling in the old steno pads or dollar store notebooks she gave me, well, that was fine and did I want a Tastykake with my sandwich for lunch?
Thatās the parenting advice she wants me to take from her, as much as she tells me anything⦠She let me be weird. In turn, I have strong memories of learning to talk to spirits in that attic room, of feeling safe in those spaces to exist and to do what I wanted without being questioned. I want Bug to know that she is loved unconditionally and without explanation needed. I want Bug to do better for herself than I did, just like Yaya and my grandfather made sure my dad and my uncles were able to do better.
So I call to her, and I think of midnight at her kitchen table when neither of us could sleep and we werenāt bothering to talk, either, just co-existing in a way I wouldnāt have the vocabulary to appreciate until much later. We donāt have to talk much. Ancestor work is much more about presence than working with the powers, maybe because ancestors can trip a full array of memories I associate with them in a way other powers canāt; the vocabulary isnāt there in the same way.
Maybe thatās why I struggle with working with ancestors I donāt have personal associations with, now that I think about it. It will be a challenge to bring Bug up honoring a great-grandmother she doesnāt have that kind of experience with, seeing if the relationship becomes real for her in some other way or if it remains an abstract sort of honoring.