I discovered Puddles Pity Party over the weekend and have become addicted to him. It isn't enough to just listen. Otherwise I could listen to the songs by the original artists and find the same relief. No. I need to watch. And not just casually. I need to fixate on his body language--facial expressions, hand gestures and shoulder shrugs and slumps. When I do that, I find I experience for a time a sense of relief from my grief.
I don't know why this is but I have a suspicion it has something to do with the autism spectrum issues. It's like Puddles is giving me lessons in how to grieve. 'This is what sad looks like. Do you see it? Do you feel it? This is how to express sadness. Can you feel me? Can you show me?'
And yet I get that it is exaggerated and because of that it also elicits unexpected smiles at the incongruous juxtapositions of humor with what seems ought to be its opposite.. Humor that feels alien at first but then settles in like an old friend reminding me that Yeah. The sad is real and strong but it isn't necessary to be swallowed by it.
A smile is not a betrayal of the reason for the sadness only proof that there will be a new song to sing when this one has run its course. And though it might be a sad song too it doesn't have to be and eventually the next song to come along will have more of Joy in it.
This experience reminds me of a period of time in the mid 80s when I was binge-watching 70s and 80s sitcoms and after some hundreds of hours of it my social skills had improved and I had begun to 'get' jokes in real time and had visceral understanding of satire, irony, and sarcasm. And tho it was still difficult I was able to translate much more of the non verbal communication around me though it was likely to be hours or days later as the 'tapes' replayed in my mind.
That was decades before my High Functioning Autism diagnosis but my reading on the spectrum has developed my understanding of what must have happened then and what might be happening now. I'm sure it has something to do with the exaggerated manifestations of emotion coupled with extreme repetition contributing to a rewiring of my brain.
Meanwhile, I continue to add to a lengthy to-do list of tasks related to the the aftermath of Ed's death. From unpacking and putting away things I brought back from his apartment, to making calls to inform those who need to know of his passing, to sorting his papers and doing his laundry. I'm adding to the list faster than I'm checking off but I'm requiring of myself at least one checked off item every day.
Fix You covered by Puddles Pity Party
As for my #ROW80 goals and #NaNoWriMo?
Well..
Sleep 7.5 hours per night has been iffy since the September 28 phone call and had degenerated dramatically the twelve days I spent at Ed's apartment cleaning and packing. But I dedicated this past weekend to catchup sleep and have maintained an average better than 6 hours so far this week. In response my mood has begun to stabilize.
Read/study craft. If I count the daily coaching Letters from Abbie I signed up for for NaNo month and the NaNo site pep letters... I'm good.
Read fiction daily. I'm reading Game of Thrones nearly every day.
Storydream in my storyworld. Yeah. Decent amount thanks to NaNo work
Scavenger hunt my files for creative writing drafts and bits and pieces worthy of hardcopy. Not since Mom's stroke in July.
Gather all my poems from files and blog into a single file to prep for self-pub. Not since I got news of Ed's death.
Journaling. yeah got this covered. Bigly.
NaNo novel Abiding Hope. Still running about 50% word count and it is still looking more like Preptober notes, outlines and sketches than actual scene work.
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