Our minds are mysterious; our conscious brain is like a ship on a sea that is obscure to us. Meghan O'Rourke More Quotes by Meghan O'Rourke More Quotes From Meghan O'Rourke 'Hamlet' is a play about a man whose grief is deemed unseemly. Meghan O'Rourke grief play men Loss doesn't feel redeemable. But for me one consoling aspect is the recognition that, in this at least, none of us is different from anyone else: We all lose loved ones; we all face our own death. Meghan O'Rourke different faces loss A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable. Meghan O'Rourke wake-up mother sky While I did a lot of research, I ended up feeling that the best way to write about grief was to describe it from the inside out - the show the strange intensities that come along with it, the peculiar thoughts, the longing for that past - all the strange moments of thinking you glimpse the dead person on the street, or in your dreams. Meghan O'Rourke grief dream writing My theory is this: Women falter when they're called on to be highly self-conscious about their talents. Not when they're called on to enact them. Meghan O'Rourke talent conscious self This is part of the complexity of grief: A piece of you recognizes it is an extreme state, an altered state, yet a large part of you is entirely subject to its demands. Meghan O'Rourke demand pieces grief Grief is at once a public and a private experience. One's inner, inexpressible disruption cannot be fully realized in one's public persona. Meghan O'Rourke persona disruption grief I believe in the importance of individuality, but in the midst of grief I also find myself wanting connection - wanting to be reminded that the sadness I feel is not just mine but ours. Meghan O'Rourke sadness grief believe But there is a discomfort that surrounds grief. It makes even the most well-intentioned people unsure of what to say. And so many of the freshly bereaved end up feeling even more alone. Meghan O'Rourke grief feelings people I envy my Jewish friends the ritual of saying kaddish - a ritual that seems perfectly conceived, with its built-in support group and its ceremonious designation of time each day devoted to remembering the lost person. Meghan O'Rourke envy support each-day One of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you the most. Meghan O'Rourke lost-ones alive loss If the condition of grief is nearly universal, its transactions are exquisitely personal. Meghan O'Rourke transactions universal grief I have seen that grief can be very different for different people. While the range of emotions experienced is similar, the way we deal with those emotions isn't, necessarily. Meghan O'Rourke different grief people The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created. Meghan O'Rourke pathways memories people To mourn is to wonder at the strangeness that grief is not written all over your face in bruised hieroglyphics. And it's also to feel, quite powerfully, that you're not allowed to descend into the deepest fathom of your grief - that to do so would be taboo somehow. Meghan O'Rourke over-you grief faces A mother is beyond any notion of a beginning. That's what makes her a mother. Meghan O'Rourke notion mother There are many kinds of loss embedded in a loss - the loss of the person, and the loss of the self you got to be with that person. And the seeming loss of the past, which now feels forever out of reach. Meghan O'Rourke self loss past Much of Hamlet is about the precise kind of slippage the mourner experiences: the difference between being and seeming, the uncertainty about how the inner translates into the outer, the sense that one is expected to perform grief palatably. (If you don’t seem sad, people worry; but if you are grief-stricken, people flinch away from your pain.) Meghan O'Rourke differences pain grief Time doesn’t obey our commands. You cannot make it holy just because it is disappearing. Meghan O'Rourke command disappear holy Suddenly it was fall, the season of death, the anniversary of things-going-to-hell. Meghan O'Rourke seasons hell fall
