There is always tension in women's gymnastics between athleticism, grace, performance, and eros. Meghan O'Rourke More Quotes by Meghan O'Rourke More Quotes From Meghan O'Rourke I wasn't prepared for the fact that grief is so unpredictable. It wasn't just sadness, and it wasn't linear. Somehow I'd thought that the first days would be the worst and then it would get steadily better - like getting over the flu. That's not how it was. Meghan O'Rourke flusadnessgrief I think about my mother every day. But usually the thoughts are fleeting - she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely... gone. Meghan O'Rourke eyemotherspring One word I had throughout the first year and a half of my mother's death was 'unmoored.' I felt that I had no anchor, that I had no home in the world. Meghan O'Rourke motherhomeyears A mother is the portal by which you enter the world. Meghan O'Rourke portalmotherworld Grief is a bad moon, a sleeper wave. It's like having an inner combatant, a saboteur who, at the slightest change in the sunlight, or at the first notes of a jingle for a dog food commercial, will flick the memory switch, bringing tears to your eyes. Meghan O'Rourke griefdogmemories All love stories are tales of beginnings. When we talk about falling in love, we go to the beginning, to pinpoint the moment of freefall. Meghan O'Rourke falling-in-lovelove-storystories Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back. Meghan O'Rourke one-daystoriesdesire I think that grief is a profound spiritual, metaphysical, and - oddly - physical reckoning with death, which we don't understand well. It's both the process by which you relearn the world in the absence of someone who was a pillar in it, and the process in which you confront the reality of death. Meghan O'Rourke griefspiritualreality A mother is a story with no beginning. That is what defines her. Meghan O'Rourke motherstories I live to collect information, and I am also a perfectionist. Meghan O'Rourke perfectionistinformation Our minds are mysterious; our conscious brain is like a ship on a sea that is obscure to us. Meghan O'Rourke seamindbrain Funerals cost so much money, and are likely to be an additional source of stress in this recession - it's sad that we don't have a more humane, less commercialized way to approach burial. Meghan O'Rourke funeralcoststress The truth is, I need to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head. Meghan O'Rourke motherworldneeds It's all too easy when talking about female gymnasts to fall into the trap of infantilizing them, spending more time worrying more about female vulnerability than we do celebrating female strength. Meghan O'Rourke worrytalkingfall I am the indoctrinated child of two lapsed Irish Catholics. Which is to say: I am not religious. Meghan O'Rourke religioustwochildren Be patient with yourself. Don't make the loss harder by thinking you should be a certain way, or have bounced back, etc. Meghan O'Rourke losswaythinking Writing has always been the primary way I make sense of the world. Meghan O'Rourke writingwayworld What's endlessly complicated in thinking about women's gymnastics is the way that vulnerability and power are threaded through the sport. Meghan O'Rourke gymnasticssportsthinking When my mother was sick, I found myself needing to put down in my journals all sorts of things - to try to understand them, and, I think, to try to remember them. Meghan O'Rourke sickmotherthinking Faith does help mourners survive their loss, some studies suggest; but I imagine one still struggles. Meghan O'Rourke struggledoeloss
