37. Bread and roses.
In grief group on Friday, in a casual moment, I told my clients that sometimes my husband laughs in his sleep so exuberantly that his laughing wakes us both up—that I am awakened by his laughter and laugh at him laughing until we’re both laughing hysterically, half-asleep, at a dream neither of us can remember in the small hours of the morning, in the stillness and the dark.
This is called “self-disclosure,” when a therapist reveals something personal about herself, and best practice dictates that self-disclosure should only be utilized sparingly, and only for the therapeutic benefit of the client, never just because it’s a story you felt like telling when M nodded off during mindfulness meditation and her snoring was musical and everyone giggled, never because it’s the last grief group of the year and R says it’s her dream to have fresh flowers every day and live by candlelight, never because everywhere is the wrack and ruin of war, of pandemic, of climate crisis and opioid crisis and mental health crisis and gun violence crisis and death feels ever-present and you want to remember and tell about every sweet small moment as if you’ve already reached the end of life, the part where you look back at your life as the sum of small moments such as these, not for that. And yet.
On my way to work that day, I got off the train two stops early to buy a bouquet of red roses for grief group, to make a ritual together, to have a symbol to share and to keep, a small, tangible way to make meaning, a way through the heartbreak.
I walked out of the store with my bunches of roses, into a bright morning on Broad Street, placed the roses in the basket of a blue bike-share bike, and set off on my last mile to work. As I caught some momentum and wind and stood on the pedals, weaving down the sidewalk towards the bike lane, I felt it come over me again—this feeling of awe and gratitude that is becoming so familiar, more familiar, even as the days become bleaker and more desperate—that feeling of: how did I get here? How is it 2023 and I’m riding a blue bicycle with two dozen red roses in the handlebar basket and the sky is turquoise with clabbered cream clouds on a crisp fall morning and everyone and everything is absolutely PULSATING with life?
How did this happen that, at 47 years old, I am situated within a wholly new timeline, that I am a person that gets off the subway and buys fresh flowers and puts them in her bicycle basket to ride through the medieval streets of a very old city in a very new world? That I feel my heart pumping blood and my lungs pumping air as my bike bell trills, slipping between, behind, and beyond bodega workers standing on the sidewalk smoking in aprons, suit-and-tie pedestrians on their cellphones, moms in slippers and moms in heels rushing kids to day care, rats scurrying from dumpster to dumpster, and wizards begging for alms? It’s all just so tender.
And yet, I’m scattered these days.
My mind careens, scans, and stutters, from the sublime to the catastrophic. My nerves are on high alert, listening for bombs falling 5,751 miles away. I went for a hike in the Wissahickon woods yesterday, and in the car on the way I caught a snippet of NPR. The news reporter stated that Israel was trying to find a country that will take in the Gazans, maybe Egypt or somewhere in Europe, but so far no country wants them.
What? I thought. WHAT? What are they talking about? Palestinians have a country. Their country is Palestine. Why are they talking about removing the Palestinians from Palestine as if that is not literally the definition of colonization, of ethnic cleansing, of genocide? I had a profound sense of time warping, which is the feeling of being disoriented, which is the result of cognitive dissonance, which is the project of empire right now, and always. How can I go for a hike like this, how can I talk to the trees and the river full of leaves like this? How can I prepare a holiday meal for my family, plain and sweet, like this? How can I think?
It’s almost Thanksgiving and the ginkgo leaves have finally turned to gold.
As a survivor of narcissistic abuse, in a society primarily marked by narcissism (what else is white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism if not narcissistic abuse writ large?), I know cognitive dissonance and its resulting disorientation quite intimately. And I know in my decades of work within my own healing, and now in my work as a mental health clinician, that the antidote to the thrall of narcissistic abuse is to orient together with empathetic humans (and other animals), to co-regulate one’s nervous system with other nervous systems and so to regulate together, to look each other in the eye and say, did you see that?! and you’re not crazy. and let’s get the fuck out of here.
Talking about Palestine, posting about Palestine, writing about Palestine, protesting about Palestine: it’s not just that we are changing the whole world with a song of grief and love that can and will and is materially changing the tide of history towards humanity, it’s also that we are resisting the lies that try to take root in our own psyches: that we’re the real abusers for telling the truth. Telling the truth—in the street, on the gram, at work, at home, at the grocery store—is the prophylaxis for cognitive dissonance, for gaslighting, for dis-integration; for all the despair and shame that keeps us from ourselves and each other, from our birthright.
We closed out grief group by taking turns reading letters out loud to our beloved deceased, and each of my clients took a rose with them, a tangible remembrance of our time together, another way to orient, to connect our emotional bodies with the material world. I took the remaining roses with me to the protest that night, holding them aloft with my signs calling for peace as we walked together singing, roses peeking out from my backpack as I brought them home to my kitchen table, roses for beauty and art and all the things beyond sustenance and daily bread and just getting by.
Everyone deserves to eat their fill, and yet we deserve so much more than just to survive. We want bread, and we want roses too.
Home.
I’m thankful to the trees and the water and the sky and the land for holding the grief when it’s all too much to bear. Recommendation: take a hike and listen to the new Andre 3000 flute album. It’s the medicine we need right now.
The world.
The Palestinian Union of Social Workers and Psychologists has issued this statement.
If you are a healthcare worker in any capacity, please consider signing this statement.
No matter who you are, please find your people and work together to do everything in your power to stop the genocide, for the beautiful people of Palestine and for all of humanity. Please don’t stop loving, don’t stop fighting, don’t stop speaking out until Palestine is free, until we are all free. The imaginations of human beings have wrought hell on earth. Imagine what kind of heaven on earth we could create together instead. xo
A Card.
I made this collage last week in grief group, and after the fact I realized I had inadvertently replicated Major Arcana XIII: Death—complete with horse and rider. The Death card represents, on one level, the knowledge that all things must pass. This card reminds us that death comes for us all—rich and poor, weak and strong. This is terrifying but ultimately freeing and absolutely necessary—death begets all life.
On another level, the Death card reminds us to let go of that which is leaving our lives—past versions of ourselves, walls around our hearts, outdated worldviews, calcified empires. Let it go, let it die, let it fall, let it rot. Let it return to the good earth and be transformed into rich, black, life-giving soil. Let it all go until your arms are empty. And once your arms are empty, and when you are ready, you can gather fresh roses, fresh bread, fresh sky and fresh water and fresh life. May it be so. xo
Home + The World is a weekly newsletter by Jodi Rhoden featuring personal essay, recipes, links and recommendations exploring the ways we become exiled: through trauma, addiction, oppression, grief, loss, and family estrangement; and the ways we create belonging: through food and cooking, through community care and recovery and harm reduction, through therapy and witchcraft and making art and telling stories and taking pictures and houseplants and unconditional love and nervous system co-regulation and cake. All content is free; the paid subscriber option is a tip jar. If you wish to support my writing with a one-time donation, you may do so on Venmo @Jodi-Rhoden. Thank you for being here and thank you for being you.
⚔️❤️ Jodi