Painful Too
In December of 1980, the fall of my sophomore year in college, John Lennon was shot to death on the sidewalk in front of the Dakota in New York City. Most people my age had just caught the tail end of the Beatles craze, but some of my friends were intense fans nonetheless and we were stunned, shattered by his murder. After his death, my friend Kent and I went to a candlelight vigil at the Student Union where people stood silently for a while, then sang songs of his. We left after about half an hour; the truth is, we had no idea what to do with what we were feeling.
It's one thing to say, as I did in my earlier post, that pain has to be embraced and suffering is a part of life. "Life is tough" is an easy phrase to throw around. But when that wave of pain rises up like a wall and slams into my door, it's a different matter.
I remember the disorientation I floated in for months after my father died. Or several years earlier the way I moved in a daze for a good half a year when my first wife and I lost a pregnancy. The grief feels a bit ridiculous after a while, embarrassing even. People, of course, were very sympathetic on both occasions, but after a few weeks or months, I couldn't see talking about it over and over again. I wanted to; it was the main thing that occupied my thoughts. But I couldn't imagine that people wanted to hear about it four months after the event.
After Lennon was killed, Paul Simon, being Paul Simon, wrote "The Late, Great Johnny Ace," which is on his "Hearts and Bones" album (they were just albums, not CDs, in those days--the early 1980s). Like most of the album, the song is bittersweet, sad and evocative. The album didn't do very well, in part because I think many people found it a "downer," too depressing. But the album that came next from Simon was "Graceland," and I doubt if he could have made it without the album that came before it.
In "The Uses of the Blues," probably my favorite essay by anyone, ever, James Baldwin writes about the necessity of suffering. But more importantly, he writes about how to make suffering "legitimate" in the way I like to think Carl Jung meant when he said that "all neurosis is the substitute for legitimate suffering." Suffering legitimately means not only enduring it, thought I need to do that, and accepting it, though I need to do that too. It also means transforming it. Or maybe I should say, allowing myself to be transformed by it.
Simon turned his grief over Lennon's death into a song, into art. Others turn suffering into a deeper sense of purpose, the way Lincoln did in the Gettysburg Address (probably one of my favorite speeches by anyone, ever). But transforming pain is an art. Going from pain to anger or rage, for example, isn't transforming it; it's deflecting it; it's lashing out or revenge.
I want to turn my pain to creation. I want to make something living from what I've lost, not simply kill something else. "Hearts and Bones" is a song about two people traveling in New Mexico, their relationship unraveling; in "Graceland," two people--a parent and child--are also traveling, but this time on a journey of hope. It's a journey that has it's difficulties, but the speaker in the song "has reason to believe we both will be received into Graceland."
I believe too, that if I can work through my pain to the creation of something honest, grace may await my efforts. Anyway, that's my journey of hope. That's the pilgrimage I'm on.
It's one thing to say, as I did in my earlier post, that pain has to be embraced and suffering is a part of life. "Life is tough" is an easy phrase to throw around. But when that wave of pain rises up like a wall and slams into my door, it's a different matter.
I remember the disorientation I floated in for months after my father died. Or several years earlier the way I moved in a daze for a good half a year when my first wife and I lost a pregnancy. The grief feels a bit ridiculous after a while, embarrassing even. People, of course, were very sympathetic on both occasions, but after a few weeks or months, I couldn't see talking about it over and over again. I wanted to; it was the main thing that occupied my thoughts. But I couldn't imagine that people wanted to hear about it four months after the event.
After Lennon was killed, Paul Simon, being Paul Simon, wrote "The Late, Great Johnny Ace," which is on his "Hearts and Bones" album (they were just albums, not CDs, in those days--the early 1980s). Like most of the album, the song is bittersweet, sad and evocative. The album didn't do very well, in part because I think many people found it a "downer," too depressing. But the album that came next from Simon was "Graceland," and I doubt if he could have made it without the album that came before it.
In "The Uses of the Blues," probably my favorite essay by anyone, ever, James Baldwin writes about the necessity of suffering. But more importantly, he writes about how to make suffering "legitimate" in the way I like to think Carl Jung meant when he said that "all neurosis is the substitute for legitimate suffering." Suffering legitimately means not only enduring it, thought I need to do that, and accepting it, though I need to do that too. It also means transforming it. Or maybe I should say, allowing myself to be transformed by it.
Simon turned his grief over Lennon's death into a song, into art. Others turn suffering into a deeper sense of purpose, the way Lincoln did in the Gettysburg Address (probably one of my favorite speeches by anyone, ever). But transforming pain is an art. Going from pain to anger or rage, for example, isn't transforming it; it's deflecting it; it's lashing out or revenge.
I want to turn my pain to creation. I want to make something living from what I've lost, not simply kill something else. "Hearts and Bones" is a song about two people traveling in New Mexico, their relationship unraveling; in "Graceland," two people--a parent and child--are also traveling, but this time on a journey of hope. It's a journey that has it's difficulties, but the speaker in the song "has reason to believe we both will be received into Graceland."
I believe too, that if I can work through my pain to the creation of something honest, grace may await my efforts. Anyway, that's my journey of hope. That's the pilgrimage I'm on.
posted by A Pilgrim at 6:41 AM
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