buffriday-with-the-bees reblogged
unburnable the cold is flooding our lives, kaveh akbar. from calling a wolf a wolf.
buffriday-with-the-bees reblogged
buffriday-with-the-bees reblogged
i know this might sound kind of weird but: if any of you have any recipes you really like, that mean something to you or you just enjoy, would you mind sharing them with me?
my grandmama is very ill and close to passing. they just removed her feeding tube and to my devastation have told me she probably only has a couple of days. we are people of very different generations but the language we shared was in food: she taught me as a little girl how to grow herbs and which dishes to use them in, what veggies were best at certain seasons, the careful method to slice onion and garlic fine. i made my first arroz con coco at her side. i can’t be there, as much as i want to, and it hurts. my mama is at the hospital with her, and often puts the phone to my grandmama’s ear; she is currently not conscious but i think she hears me anyway. i like to read out recipes to her, though, and talk through the ones she passed down to me. i just tell her about the things we could make some day. ive been doing this for a couple of days now and as much as it breaks my heart i think it might be soothing for her. that she might imagine we are back in the kitchen and i’m 6, trying to sneak bites of sancocho and dumping in too much salt.
ive shared all of mine with her, and it hurts too much to look for new things she might like. if any of you have something you like that you wouldnt mind sharing i think it would be good. i’d like to tell her about something that people make with love.
im sorry for the long sappy post but it’s just a hard time right now. i hope you’re all well and send my appreciation in advance. i think love in food and cooking shines through and i’d love to share that with her, if any of you have something.
xx
buffriday-with-the-bees reblogged
Our culture has celebrities in place of myths, and we have grief twitter instead of byzantine lore about the journey to the underworld and the proper ways of burial. When celebrities die and we mourn them in a massively public way, this is a safe way to practice mourning for our parents and our partners and our friends, to try to force ourselves to make the unthinkable familiar.
The generational quality of this grief comes from the fact that, as the celebrities with whom we grew up die, it signals that we are at the age where people are dying, and we look ahead to the inevitable disasters, the wave that grows larger on the horizon. If our public grief is a performance, it’s a performance in the way that a disaster drill is a performance.
Our grief at losing an icon who meant a great deal to us is a real grief but a bearable one. But that bearable grief is a test-drive for future unbearable ones. We practice together in the hope that we can be prepared, so that the idea of loss does not seem so alien.
Complaints about the inappropriate nature of grief on social media – that it’s a circle-jerk, a joiner’s club, an obligated performance – are as defining a part of these mournings as the remembrances themselves. But to call this grief a performance is to miss the point – it’s not a performance, it’s a rehearsal. It seems right to me that grief be public, and messy, and inconvenient, that it make everyone in its path uncomfortable.
Small amounts of discomfort, after all, increase our tolerance for large amounts of pain. Mourning celebrities who mattered to us is a way to remind ourselves that no one is spared, not even those who seemed immortal, larger than a human being with petty little organs doing their pedestrian little jobs inside their skin. Speaking things aloud removes their terror, dulls the power of their unfamiliarity. We speak this over and over to try to come to terms with something that cannot possibly be made familiar.
buffriday-with-the-bees reblogged
Let me be crystal clear: if you’ve faced a tragedy and someone tells you in any way, shape or form that your tragedy was meant to be, that it happened for a reason, that it will make you a better person, or that taking responsibility for it will fix it, you have every right to remove them from your life.
Grief is brutally painful. Grief does not only occur when someone dies. When relationships fall apart, you grieve. When opportunities are shattered, you grieve. When dreams die, you grieve. When illnesses wreck you, you grieve.
So I’m going to repeat a few words I’ve uttered countless times; words so powerful and honest they tear at the hubris of every jackass who participates in the debasing of the grieving:
Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.
Source: timjlawrence.com