Ardente domo: On grief, solace, and letting go of 2020
For Arthuro
By now all was still, no voices, no barking watchdogs, just the Moon on her course aloft in the night sky
-Ovid, Tristia (1st c. CE) 1.3. 27–28, Green 2005 transl.
Full disclosure: I didn’t want to write this post. But then I realized that it was not so much that I didn’t want to write it, but rather that I was afraid of what it would bring up. The dust has not settled. How could it, since the storm has not subsided yet? Yet somehow, it feels like something is coming to an end, or a beginning. So I wrote, and this is what came out. Fragments from my year. Fragments about how I tried to make sense of all the nonsense, to let go of what I could not control (namely pretty much everything). Fragments about some of the things I’ve learned, some of the stories that touched me, and what has kept me going.
Here’s my farewell to 2020. Ave atque vale.
***
Since the city was suffering from the plague, ambassadors were sent to bring the statue of Aesculapius from Epidaurus to Rome; and they carried off a serpent, which had slipped aboard their ship and which — so it was generally believed — contained the true spirit of the god. When it had gone ashore onto the Tiber island, a temple of Aesculapius was established in that very spot.
-Livy, History, summaries xi, Beard, North and Price 1998 transl.
***
One of my favourite ancient goddesses is Isis-Thermouthis (also known as Agatha Tyche). The syncretic goddess, which is mostly attested in the Roman period Egypt, was known as the consort of Shaï aka Agathos Daimon, who was assimilated with Osiris. Together, they were known and portrayed as potent forces of fertility, regeneration, rebirth, both within and beyond this world.
One powerful representation of the couple is a turn of the era limestone statue of Isis Termouthis and Agathos Daimon found in Denderah that is now on exhibit at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The couple has been interpreted as a divinized rendering of Cleopatra VII and Mark Anthony’s twins, Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios.
But my favorite representation of Isis Termouthis is a terracotta figurine displayed in Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. She struck me so much that I had her tattooed on my left forearm. The tip of the tail touches my wrist. It seems to ondulate when I move.
***
Words on tongues, moves and sparks in the body, soul and mind in no particular order.
Indigenous and Black lives matter, Land Back, below 1 is good and above 1 is bad, quarantine, gaslighting/gaslighter/gaslit, Wet’suwet’en, frontline, long term care homes, long earrings are not compatible with mask wearing, face shield, Black is King, lockdown, heirloom seeds, wear a mask, ginger shots make you feel in control of your immune system, defund the police, Zoom head nod, Uepishtikueiau, ^^^, covid begets covidiots, singing/dining/laughing/chatting loudly indoors is kind of gross, Six Nations, peregrine falcon, self-hugs, race, asymptomatic/symptomatic/sycophantic, Purrell, those sneakers boxes make for perfect laptop stand, relations, Summer, RIP Chadwick Boseman, 20 seconds, self hug/massage/love, eat the rich, Kanien’kehá:ka, potent, Cherry Beach, discomfort, reggaeton, rain pants, the phone holder in the middle of ring lights can be used to hold small flat objects or frames, freewriting, Great Conjunction, eclipse, ZZ plants, WAP, isolate/self-isolate/percolate, listen.
Lavender eye pillows are good on the nervous system.
Habitus shift.
***
For most people I know, and no doubt most people tout court, 2020 was a year of inescapable triggers and pain and losses. Whatever you were holding on too tight to, whatever you were trying to toss aside, whatever you hid from yourself, most probably boomeranged right in your gut.
Sharp pain.
There is no going back.
What will we do with all this? What have we, deep down, learned?
***
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer tells many stories about what her non-human relations, and especially plant kins, have taught her. The land teaches us. It’s a matter of us paying attention and tending to these relations. In Memory Serves, Lee Maracle tells an incredibly powerful story about Salmon and their teachings and gifts.
What is Toronto’s land teaching me? What am I, a settler academic, doing on this land? Why have I been hired to teach Roman history, ancient Egyptian history, Latin, Classics here? Why is it legitimate for me to tell stories about ancient Egypt’s land? Is it my story to tell? What stories do I know about what is known as Québec? What stories do I know about what is known as Toronto, and as Turtle Island?
I sit at the foot of my favorite tree in a Cabbagetown park. I wonder: What is the tree feeling? What are they thinking of us below, of our obsession for manicured and controlled landscapes, of the aggressive land mowers who, in the summer months, cut the grass way too short, of the smoky bbq parties that take place around them in the summer time? Of the people who circle them with garlands? Of the dogs who pee and poo on them? Of the city official who chained a picnic table to them? What do they think of the children who leave small offerings at their feet and of the rare passersbys who stop for a moment, put their hands on its trunk, and pay homage to them? How can we pay back to them, and to all the trees who, circled by concrete and noise and pollution, survive in that thickly built and growingly grey city of concrete and glass towers? How can we ever express gratitude to them for being such steadfast, soothing friends during the darkest moments of our lives?
***
Eudaimonis to Aline her daughter, many greetings. I have as the most compelling of all my prayers the one of your health and that of your brother Apollonios and of your (children) whom the evil eye may not touch.
- P.Giss. 23, late reign of Trajan (2nd c. CE), from Hermoupolis Magna, Rowlandson 1996 transl.
***
Since my son was born I’ve been singing to him the same the modern Greek lament Yiati pouli den kelaideis at bed time. I learned it from Savina Yannatou’s version while studying in Crete in 1999 and it stuck with me ever since:
Γιατί, πουλί, δεν κελαηδείς / πως κελαηδούσες πρώτα;
Άχ, πώς μπορώ να κελαηδώ / πως κελαηδούσα πρώτα;
Μου κόψαν τα φτερούδια μου / μου πήραν τη λαλιά μου.
“Why don’t you sing, little bird,
the way you sang before?Oh, how can I sing
the way I sang before?They cut off my wings
they took away my voice.”
My son loves this song. He knows all the words and sometimes we sing it together. It appeases him. But he doesn’t know what the story is. He doesn’t know what the words mean.
***
Three months after our oldest cat Augusto passed away in late May, our other cat Arthuro, who was his best friend and lifelong partner in crime, became weaker. We brought him to the vet and he had to be hospitalized. It turned out he had a pancreatitis, and an ultrasound revealed what is most probably a cancerous mass in his abdomen.
I told Arthuro that we would be super happy if he wants to hang out with us a bit more, but that should he prefer to go and reunite with his longtime best friend Augusto on the other side, I would not hold him back. When I went to visit him at the clinic, I was allowed to stay with him in a room for a long while. I took him in my arms and sang to him the same lament I sing my son. He started purring and put his head on my left shoulder.
A few days later, we were relieved to learn that Arthuro seems to have decided to stay around a bit more. He responded well to treatment and started eating again. We’ve decided to move to palliative care and not go through the biopsy and chemotherapy road (he’s over 18 years old; what’s the point of inflicting that on an old cat?). Anyhow he has been home with us all Fall, sleeping, purring, hanging out with us.
Today, seven months almost to the day after Augusto’s passing, Arthuro is dying. The time has come to say goodbye as he moves from the world of the living to the world of the dead. Hopefully his best friend will greet him on the other side.
Farewell, Arthuro.
Grief.
***
I really like the frescoes from Pompeii that depict sparrows. They make me think of my great-grandmother. My grand-mother told me she, her mom, used to say that sparrows were her favourite birds because they were the only ones who did not abandon us during winter. They stayed with us. They peppered the air with their feathered chirping, hiding in the maple branches and eating bread crumbs in the palm of children’s hands.
A team of Italian archaeologists found a bar in Pompeii. The sides of the counter is painted with frescoes: birds, a dog. A graffito was made by someone who calls a man believed to be the owner of the establishment a shitter. What moves me the most in the pictures I saw online is the colour of the border: A warm, intense yellow. Ocre. It reminds me that scholars recently found out that the famous red of the Villa of Mysteries had been created in the process of the city’s destruction by the Vesuvius. What is now red was originally yellow. Pompeian yellow.
Yellow as in fire and sun.
Yellow as in solar plexus.
Yellow as in Jupiter.
***
My son cries in the bathtub. It’s not a normal cry. It doesn’t stop. It’s a deep wailing. It’s emotional distress. “Why are you crying?”, I ask. “I cannot tell you”, he says between two sobs. “If I say it I will cry even more.”
“Look at me”, I say softly. I reach an open hand toward him. “See my hand? Now take what’s hurting off your chest, roll it in a ball, and give it to me”. His left hand touches his wet chest and mimics dropping a little ball on my palm. He says “I’m sad and angry at myself! I keep making errors! I’m not good! I’m bad!”
***
My therapist taught me this technique to calm and ground the mind:
Name 5 things you see right now
Name 4 things you hear right now
Name 3 things you touch right now
Name 3 things you smell right now
Name 1 thing you taste right now
It works magic. Even with children.
***
During the first lockdown, I fell back into a depression. I see it as a relapse from my post-partum depression, which I never really had the time to process. Despite all my privileges as a tenured academic with a stable income and (so far = fingers crossed) no closed ones lost to covid, the spring was traumatic, and I’ve had to deal with regular ptsd triggers ever since. As a way to cope, I took the habit of going for a bike ride at sunrise. I would bike to a nearby park or beach, and make it a point to observe, and sit with, the land. I paid attention to the buds and leaves, to bark texture, to flowers, to wind, clouds and rain, to silence and city noises, to birds and mushrooms and grass and rocks.
Going outside is also going inside. It is a way, when one stops, and one is only there being and breathing, to settle down and take possession of oneself. Outside the murmurs or screams or cries of life. Outside the “you should and you could and you want to and you need to”. It is a pause in the endless stream of neoliberal stress that is poured down our collective throats. It is a refusal to be subdued into (in)action.
One morning, it struck me: The earth, trees and air are like a body. The branches of trees resemble our vein and artery system. It’s as if our body is full of trees. A forest of blood. And the skin is like the atmosphere. And the bones the earth. So if the earth is like a body, and bodies like the earth, what are human beings? Are we vitamins or viruses? White cells, red cells, germs, parasites? What are we? I suppose it depends how we behave. It depends how we care — or not — for the earth’s body. This is where the morale choice resides.
***
The weeks on end of lockdown is that it forced me to revive my artistic practice, which, apart from casual photography, had become dormant this past decade due to my work and parenting (over)load. I soon remembered how drawing, painting or crafting something comes with the advantage of monopolizing all of one’s brain and senses. When I get in “the zone”, the feelings of depression, anxiety, anger, and fear, disappear. I feel the same when I teach, do research, garden or cook. It makes sense because these are creative acts too. There is a therapeutic, if not healing, quality to focused creative and performance work.
***
Isidora to Hermia, her Lord brother, very many greetings. Do everything you can to put everything off and come tomorrow; the child (?) is sick. He has become thin, and for 6 days he hasn’t eaten. Come here lest he die while you’re not here…
- PSI 3 177, 2nd-3rd c. CE, found in Oxyrhynchos, Rowlandson 1996 transl.
***
My maternal great-grand-mother had Spanish flu. The story goes that she was in such a critical condition that the doctor told her parents to get ready for the worst. Her wedding was cancelled, and, as you can imagine, everyone was devastated. But then my great-grand-mother heard the prognostic, and she thought to herself, “no way this virus is gonna win; watch me”. And so she recovered, and got married.
Her name was Aimée. “Beloved”.
***
Time is not linear nor teleological nor logical.
Enlightenment is an allegorical cave.
History is stories.
History as refracted mirror.
***
There is a plaster bust of Octavian-Augustus in one of my department’s classrooms. The most fancy one. The one where talks usually take place. The bust is all white. Immaculate. Austere. Augustus looks very sure of himself. A spectre with a Putin touch. If you teach, you face him. If you give a talk, you face him. He was there during my job talk. He remains so now. Unphased, unimpressed in his assigned corner. Everytime I see that bust, I think of the framed reproduction of Raphael’s The School of Athens hung downstairs in the hallway. Everyone who walks in the faculty office area from the lobby walks by it.
A prime spot.
***
I don’t miss people. I miss landscapes.
You can facetime people. You cannot facetime the land.
During the first lockdown, my dad went skiing and sent me a picture he took in the snow-filled forest close to our home. My heart ached.
Before Christmas, my yoga teacher taught from a cottage. Behind her, through the bay window, we could see evergreens covered in snow. A trigger.
On Christmas morning, Toronto was covered in snow. Silence. Birds. No wind. I walked alone in the park, filled with joy and gratitude. Tears.
***
December 12, 2020, 10am. Cherry Beach.
So that bike ride was worth it but quite challenging. The wind is way stronger than I had anticipated. It is so cold.
There are many kitesurfs on the grey lake, amidst the freezing waves, swirling in the wind gusts. I look up. Tree branches are waving and they make a soft sound. Quite soothing, actually. There are buds on them. They don’t fall or fly away. They sway. They wait. They hold on.
Tkaronto, “The place in the water where the trees are standing”.
***
And so I have seen the seasons go by this year. I have seen them go by from up close because I stood still. I could not travel. I could not escape. I could not pretend it was summer when it was March, and I could not fly to San Juan for a dose of tropicality, or to Cairo and god knows where else for work. I remember fervently waiting for the buds to bloom in April. The chestnut trees by the cemetery took forever to unfold their leaves. But when they did, what a sight. They looked like legless praying mantises. And now they are gone. Has so much time passed by? It feels like forever. But it also feels like it was not too long ago.
A circle.
***
December 28th, 10pm. I’m reading Leanne Betasamosake-Simpson’s Noopiming and this quote hits me hard. I read it twice, three times, then fold the corner of the page. I think of all that it contains, of all that it teaches. I think of sticking it to my mirror. I think others might appreciate it too:
“Weweni,”
They meant, Be careful. Be very careful with your words. Your thoughts. Your actions. Think it through.
Then think it through again.
Think it ahead through time.
Think it backwards through time
Find seven alternate ways to fix the problem.
Make sure it is a problem.
Make sure it needs to be fixed.
Think about the network as the first line of defense.
Think think think before you speak, type, post. Each syllable is a log you put in the fire. The fire can uplift or destroy.
Weweni.
Weweni.
Protect individual hearts from hurt, because the processing of hurt is necessary and it takes energy from the group. The supports needed to process trauma and to regenerate are costly.
Remember that words carry the ability to impact the chemistry of the brains and the beating of the hearts.
Calls should be whispers. The only one you can hold accountable is yourself. That really is your only job.
***
If the moon can pull and push the sea, couldn’t it also pull and push us?
December 29th, 2020. Today is the full moon. The last full moon of the year. A full moon in Cancer. I started paying more attention to the moon this year, as well as to astrology: I subscribed to Forever Conscious, I booked a private reading of my astrological chart, and bought a Great Conjunction workshop from Chani Nicholas. I grew more appreciative of Claudius Ptolemy’s work, and, when my PhD supervisee pointed out to me that his works of geography and astronomy were complementary and thus testified to an encompassing conception of the world, it struck me that his astrology was the third piece that made it hold together.
I found an animated clip of Ptolemy’s conception of the solar system and thought it was beautiful and poetic.
I jokingly say that this newfound interest is a result of my pandemic-triggered desperation and need for some existential buoy. Some pray to god.desse.s. Some find scapegoats (I see you, ancient Romans who blamed the Christians for the Antonine Plague). I practice meditation and yoga, listen to sound baths, and, as of 2020, follow astrology. I don’t know whether, or how, this all ‘works’. But that’s besides the point.
***
Since I know the Fates, and know where each man’s destiny shall take him, and know the wonders and griefs Fate has in store, all these things I can reveal through the power of my <prophetic> loom, if you will meditate on these things in your heart, putting your trust in the loom’s power.
- Sibyl speaking, excerpt from a probably Sibylline Oracle preserved in Phlegon’s Wonders (2nd c. CE), Beard, North and Price 1998 transl.
