Sitting in Autumn

Recently I’ve learned that I’m a pretty mood-driven person. I match my clothing, music, books, movies, conversations, activities, foods, and thoughts to my moods, underscoring them and soaking in them for the sake of experiencing them. I like that I’m that way, for the most part, but there are trade-offs that I’m now working on.

One of the trade-offs is autumn. I feel the chill in the air, see the leaves starting to turn, and a sense of dread comes over me – it will soon be gray and cold for months, and I will notice how bare trees look like raw nerves reaching into bitter skies (an example of a thought matching a mood, there). When I’m in the mood to let melancholy have its way, autumn feels like the end of a good thing, a sigh, a dropping and sweeping away of the detritus of an exuberant summer. I feel myself bracing, and I start wondering where I packed away the light therapy lamps and the space heaters.

I have the capacity to run with my moods like this for extended periods. This summer was a case in point. The emotion I was trying to avoid was sadness – grief, really – and fear of vulnerability I experience in life. A woman who had become a sort of spiritual mother to me died of stomach cancer a couple of days after we said goodbye on the phone – I remember the scent of lilacs wafting through my office windows as we spoke and she prayed that I would abide. My wife and I knew that her job would be going away at some point (it’s taken longer than we expected, but is now imminent) and there is a sort of grief and dread that has come with the pending change. My mother was diagnosed with a lyposarcoma, which led to surgery to remove a football-sized tumor from her stomach. The tumor was non-cancerous, and her recovery has been amazing – with no further drugs or treatment required – but she and I talked about how if she died, it would be okay…and on the day of the surgery my brothers and father and I lined up to hug her goodbye in case the surgery didn’t go well. My dad’s best friend of 35 years, the one who taught my family to fish, died suddenly while alone at his summer house in Michigan. He was alone because his wife was here in Indianapolis for his daughter’s wedding shower. Her uncle walked her down the isle in September. The day after my dad’s friend died, my dad and I drove up Michigan to gather his things, his dog, and his car. The day after the friend’s memorial service was a Sunday, and I remember not wanting to wake up because I was afraid of what the day might hit me with (and I’m somebody who always wakes up in a good mood). There was a text from Daniel Rassum saying he wanted to talk because he was going to turn himself in, and risk facing life in prison. The next day he had his wife drop him off at the jail – I spoke with her as she drove home. His jacket is still hanging on our coat rack, waiting for him. The day after that, my dog with the bad leg had her other leg go out. I made the call to the vet, and the next morning he came over and they put her down. I held my hand over her face so Christine wouldn’t see that I the dog’s eyes wouldn’t close and her tongue wouldn’t go back into her mouth.

I’d felt the squish of surface tears, and the gripping in my chest, from the other sadnesses of the summer, but I didn’t really touch grief until I walked back into our kitchen and heaved sobs into Christine’s shoulder as the vet loaded Abby onto a stretcher and took her body away.

Grief, for me, seems to be the key to my joy. And I never knew it before.

I was so present with Abby’s death – she was looking into my eyes as she went, and I was spooned against her, petting her in the grass – that there was no place for me to hide. The reality was stronger than my habitual tendency to shape experiences with my moods. She died, and I chose the time and place and means, and I held her leg as they put the needle in. I made the right choice, but it was a horrible choice to have to make, and all I could do was let the reality of the moment slam into me.

I was terrified of the grieving. Christine promised me that it would be okay, and that I should let it come. “Don’t put a clock on it,” she told me, “let it do it’s work.”

I’m crying just thinking about the dog, and about the summer. My other dog, Emily, loves this and is licking my salty tears.

Is all of life like this – one dead dog and one sweet living one?

I’m starting to think it is.

Grief denied leads to a bitter sludge in the bottom of the tank of my soul. It leads to memories and resentments groomed and tended and leveraged – to sourness and a persistent story of victimization. It leads to fear and fear’s paralysis because the person who cannot grieve will never learn how durable they are, and how good a gift this life really is. Instead, people like me choose to focus on moods, internal things, feeling very aware of their vulnerability. People like me tend to dwell on the dead dog, however kind we may be to the living one curled beside us.

So, to autumn and the rusty passion-sapped suicides fluttering to the ground like so many latte-soaked emergents at a Pepsi Refresh conference. It’s a choice between the primacy of mood and the primacy of reality. At least for me. Which will determine my day? In which one will I find life?

Yesterday I downloaded the Omnifocus app for my iPhone. It’s my new spiritual tool. It’s a task manager, and a life-line connecting my moody self to the living world (in which grief plays a huge role). Today my list includes: Bible reading, journaling, chiropractor, brushing my teeth, a weekly trim of eyebrows and nose hairs, washing the sheets, drinking 120 oz of water, “core” muscle exercises, working out, solving the clogged pipes in my bathroom, 30 minutes of “soaking” in worship music, writing this blog post, two Twitter updates, walking the dog, buying Christine’s birthday gift, buying this week’s flowers, a trip to Whole Foods, buying Luther’s 3 Treatises, making my daily “check-in” phone call with two friends, preparing for my men’s group that meets at my house Monday nights, recording my feelings, recording my eating, recording a short gratitude list, cleaning the upstairs bathroom, and beginning the outline for a new book. These things happen in reality, and if I choose to live in reality as well, I am likely to remember that I love autumn for the brisk air, the beauty of the colors, the sound of the high school football game’s PA system and marching band carrying all the way to my open windows on Friday nights, and for the walk I will take in the woods with Christine tomorrow.

And seriously, that puts me in a pretty good mood.