5 Ways to Grieve
Write a Catalogue of Flower Names:
Begin with the perennials, and pay close attention to how their strong root system makes way for the plants to rejuvenate and grow each year. Their blossoms appear fragile, like someone who carries grief— but they grow back into their old shape and form each year. Daylilies can survive in harsh urbanized spaces that are polluted and sparse, including in winter when pavements are salted. Hibiscus is the last perennial to bloom in spring. Dianthus grow in alkaline soils, and are tolerant of short interludes of dryness. Allium, or ornamental onions, are aromatic and spring with vivacious, purple bulblets. Coneflowers provide use even after they’ve wilted in the fall, as their seeds become winter food for finches.
Dance:
After learning about perennials, dance. When the wound is open, grief swiftly passes in. People think grief is a thing to be reckoned with, but it is also an opportunity to know yourself, like one does with joy. Rumi spoke of how dance is a singing, an invitation to embrace your experience: “Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.” There are rooms you occupy, and those you will fill, and the rooms which will be lighter with energy because of the movements within their dimensions. Dance is an expression of life, the onset of celebration in the body— also to be tapped into during a phase of mourning. When there are no words left, the last chord of music leads to dancing.
Explore an Unknown Place on Google StreetView:
Once you’ve danced, embrace stillness instead of movement. A rootedness to place will bring you solace— and you’ll be more aware of the landscape when in a new place. Open Google StreetView on your browser and select an area where you’ve never been. Zoom in to see what the neighbourhood looks like, and how every house or window differs from the others in the fragment of reflection it occupies. Each house, balcony, and window hold a story different or similar to yours. There’s an invisible scale of familiarity. See how we’re all connected, even in grief. With maps, you’ll learn how cartographers dot places like veins in the body.
Watch Videos of Rain:
Rain is a malleable permanence. When you watch rain, you’ll remember how it is a synecdoche to wash away the excesses. As you keep watching rain, learn to breathe deeply, taking in all the air to your lungs, and slowly become aware of each breath. You are alive and here, despite your grief, amid the sound of rain. Stay here as long as you like.
Browse an Airport Arrivals and Departures Schedule Online:
When you observe the arrivals and departures list, you’ll imagine how people bid goodbyes, unite, and temporarily separate all in one place. For every arrival or departure, there is an individual story— like grief. Going to the airport is like wearing a different scent each time. There’s one for nostalgia, one for meeting again, and another for leaving a familiar home that has ceased feeling like home for a long time. This is how grief operates, from one source, then into a rivulet of plenitudes. Hold your grief, and then practice letting go.