Resting Isn't An Afterthought

Today was a day of rest, which carried some stress in its own way.

That might seem odd to you if you’ve been following along on this journey and think that my life sounds pretty darn restful at the moment. Maybe that’s just the dregs of capitalism seeping into my brain waves, in the sense that most of us feel the need to be productive much of the time. If we aren’t, we must be lacking in some way, right?

I was really impacted by Tricia Hersey’s book Rest is Resistance a while back (I read it in one day, but that was back when I could still read). Her basic point is that rest—for its own sake, without any preconditions or parameters, just to rest—is something that we deserve. She says that we deserve rest because we are human beings, not because of something we’ve done that has made us worthy of that rest. She also says that our ancestors did not work themselves to death so that we can do the same thing. I agree with her so, so much that the grind mindset is toxic and that we need to prioritize just being at rest, rather than conceptualizing self-care as “I need to do what I can to rest today so that I can burn myself out tomorrow all over again”. I also wholeheartedly agree that we cannot make to-do lists while we’re resting, because that’s not rest.

The idea of rest as a radical act of resistance against capitalism really appeals to me, and so I’ve tried to think of periods of rest for myself in that context for the past couple of years. But it’s so hard to do that, isn’t it? I know, on the one hand, that I have at least a hundred small tasks I could be doing right now. If I did them, I’d probably do them poorly, though (since I’m so tired from everything else that has happened in my week). That doesn’t mean the tasks are my ultimate destination or priority, and that I’m just biding my time while resting until I get to do those things.

That fact helps me motivate myself to let myself just rest, sometimes. On a good day.

So when I say that it carried its own type of stress today, I mean that I know there are tasks I could pick up and do at any given moment, but I am consciously choosing not to do them today. So I have tried (unsuccessfully) to read. I have eaten food (including a delicious lunch from Evie’s Luau). I have played Mina the Hollower, a new game I’ve been waiting for for quite a while. I have listened to music. I have sat in Kellie’s recliner and thought about how big a hole her absence has left in my daily existence. I have taken the dogs to the backyard, and I have chatted with my parents off and on. That’s been my day. Quiet, peaceful, and full of rest.

I did get the chance to speak with a friend from my Quaker Meeting this morning—it was such a pleasant surprise to hear from her and talk about how I’m doing. I don’t know about you, but my immediate impulse when I get a phone call is to do anything BUT answer it. I have been trying to lean in the opposite direction since Kellie died, because I’ve been getting so many random calls that have turned out to be lovely. And this one was more than lovely, it provided me with a lot of support that I didn’t know I was even looking for today. Serendipity strikes again!

In other news, I was number 19,939 today for the general sale of the Power to the People Festival, unfortunately. Much more fortunately, one of my friends was number 531 (somehow) and he was able to snag me a ticket. So I’m headed to the DC area in October with him, and I cannot wait. Public Enemy just got added to the lineup yesterday—it should be a truly epic show, and the fact that more than a hundred thousand of us immediately tried ordering tickets within the last couple of days should give us all hope about the ways that our fellow Americans feel about the direction this country is headed. Needless to say, it’s sold out. That doesn’t mean there aren’t scalpers already selling tickets for TEN TIMES their face value, for literally thousands of dollars. Ouch.

I’ve started to look around for widower support groups that might appeal to me in some way. I have found that many widowers are in their 70s and 80s and are thus not necessarily in the same boat as I am (though it’s the same ocean for sure). Who knows if I’ll be able to find something, but I’ve got a lifetime to look, right?

I’ve also been looking for a way to buy some William Baffin roses (the suggestion of which was another gift from my friend). If anyone has seen them mentioned anywhere, please let me know. I think they’d be the perfect addition to Kellie’s garden. I found one nursery that had them in stock, but I’d have to pick them up in Colorado in-person, and although I’m considering road trips that might be slightly too far to go for a rose bush.

These late nights sitting on the bench out there have given me some peace, at least some momentary peace. Our neighborhood is so quiet, and at night the view is so pretty. My initial reaction to my dad’s suggestion of a memorial garden in the front yard was surprise at the idea that anyone would want to hang out in my front yard rather than the backyard, which is considerably more private. But I have to say that the garden has been the perfect place to sit and remember Kellie and talk through some struggles I’m having. I highly recommend hanging out in my front yard, in other words. Not surprisingly, my dad turned out to be right once again.

I continue writing to Kellie in a dedicated journal every day as well as writing here and also pondering a longer-form writing project of some sort. The words seem to be helping me stay unstuck emotionally far better than keeping them in would, so I’m grateful that I started doing this. As I’ve said, I plan to keep doing it as long as it feels worthwhile—to me, to you guys, to my process, to something.

Someone who read my post last night asked how they can buy me audiobooks on Audible. Mind you, I am not asking for presents. But if you wanted to do that, it appears that you can go to Audible, click “more options” on the page for a given book, and choose “give as gift” to send it to anybody. The email address I use most often is apooltoswim@gmail.com. Also, there are alternatives not owned by Jeff Bezos (such as Libro.fm and Chirp). Again, I don’t need audiobooks from you, but I wanted to answer the question.

Another response I wanted to comment on was from someone who noted that death certificates are often just a formality and don’t really reflect the true cause of death or aren’t typically accurate in all kinds of ways. I can accept that that’s true in practice, but it SHOULDN’T be the way it happens. It matters what we say about how a person died. It should be accurate, and it shouldn’t be a random guess. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not trying to say that my experience with Kellie is worse than the typical person experiences, I’m just trying to ask why we can’t aspire to better than “I guess I’ll just put something random” on these very important documents. Folks who are grieving are going to ascribe more meaning to something like a death certificate than the general population does, because it’s the last concrete thing we have that symbolizes the dividing line between them being alive and them being dead.

I’d like to resume my discussion of the 55 important songs I chose for Kellie’s calling hours playlist, before too much time goes by and I forget to pick up that thread for too long.

1. OK Go: This Too Shall Pass

   This one was important to both Kellie and I. The video is (of course, if you know OK Go) pretty awesome, but the song gives me hope and the kind of spine tingling feelings that I appreciate from a really stellar piece of music.

2. Tori Amos: Silent All These Years

   Kellie loved Tori Amos for a big portion of her life, especially the album this one is on. Probably Tori’s most recognizable song, and I always appreciate hearing it.

3. Geoff Berner: Light Enough to Travel

   This one is special. Geoff Berner is one of our favorite artists ever, and he is also someone who has personally blocked me on Facebook because we were arguing about something dumb. Politically-speaking, I am far more a humanist and an optimist and a person who believes in the power of advocacy and organizing, and Geoff is far more a person who wants to bring about positive change via revolution in the streets. His music has been a consistent part of the last twenty years of our lives, and this one is our favorite.

4. Old Man Luedecke: I Quit My Job

   Did you ever have a song that you listened to incessantly during a hard time in your life, that you genuinely believe helped you make it through? This is that song for Kellie. In spite of all the things we never managed to do in our mere 30 years together, the one thing I am proudest of her for actually doing is quitting her job.

   Oh bright minds of poverty

   Hold on to your heart won liberties

   And discard your store-bought realities

   Don’t let them take the joy that you make

   On your own

   Work when you need to maybe

   Don’t let ‘em bleed you baby

   They do nothing more than feed you lady

   Don’t let them take the joy that you make

   On your own

   Don’t fuss, don’t fight it no

   Take that wrong and right it ho

   Can always live on rice and potatoes

   Take your heart’s candle and relight it

   I quit my job

   I’m free today

   Should be proud of where I am

   All my friends work their dreams with their hands

   And truly this is the promised land

   Don’t kill yourself about making it

   Just be takin it easy but be takin it

   There’s enough out there who are fakin it

   Don’t let them take the joy that you make

   On your own

5. The Shins: New Slang

   This one is very evocative of a specific place and time for us, and will always take us back there.

6. Brian Vander Ark: Colorful

   You may know this guy as the lead singer of the Verve Pipe (or maybe not). He’s very very tall, he’s an incredible singer songwriter, and he is worth traveling to see live. We’ve done so more than a few times. This song always makes me think of Kellie, and it’s a great one. These lyrics are superb, and are actually making me cry right now typing them out.

   The show is over, close the storybook
   There will be no encore
   And all the random hands that I have shook
   Well, they’re reaching for the door
   I watch the backs as they leave single-file
   You stood stubborn, cheering all the while

   I know I can be colorful
   I know I can be grey
   And I know this loser’s living fortunate
   ‘Cause I know you will love me either way

   Most were being good for goodness sake
   But you wouldn’t pantomine
   You are more beautiful when you awake
   Than most are in a lifetime
   Through the haze that is my memory
   You stayed for drama though you paid for a comedy

7. Marty Casey: Mr. Brightside

   You’ve probably heard Mr. Brightside by The Killers at some point, or many points. But you probably have never heard this version. Rockstar: INXS was a reality show most people didn’t watch, which was a competition to replace Michael Hutchence as lead singer of INXS. We got a lot of joy from the performances on that show, and this was her favorite.

8. Hugh Christopher Brown & Kate Fenner: While You Sleep

   I’ve shared lyrics from this song here in the past, but haven’t really discussed why it’s mattered so much to Kellie and I. Chris & Kate have been writing and recording as a duo (sometimes) since they were teenagers, and the weaving of their voices together is just the absolute best. Lots of you probably know that due to a series of unfortunate events, Kellie didn’t get her driver’s license as a kid. She was actually in her 30s by the time that happened. But we’ve been on a bunch of road trips over the years, which meant I have driven Kellie to a bunch of places over the years, often during the nighttime hours while she dozed and I kept us (mostly) safe and got us where we were going. This song describes that mood perfectly for me, and has always been special to us both for that reason.

   Shadows play on the snow

   Gently moonlight casts its glow

   Close your eyes, stars appear

   When you wake, we will be far from here

   There’s a promise left to keep

   I will drive, while you sleep

9. Matt Nathanson: Loud

   Kellie and I have hundreds of Matt Nathanson songs in every music library or app, but this is her favorite song by him. It never fails to make me feel close to her. It helps that it’s a duet between a man and woman, so we always had our own parts to sing (like our marriage, now that I think about it).

10. Harry Connick Jr.: It Had To Be You

    This is the only song on the playlist that I asked for advice on. Kellie had a deep, deep love for Harry Connick Jr. throughout high school. He was very important to her, but not so much to me. I reached out to Kellie’s dear friend Lindsay for a Harry Connick Jr. suggestion, and she pondered and gave me several options. I ended up choosing this one out of Lindsay’s picks because it’s from When Harry Met Sally, which Kellie really enjoyed and regularly rewatched.

11. Martin Tielli: My Sweet Relief

    Martin is one of those once in a generation talents that you keep track of whenever he appears, because you don’t want to miss the art and music and beauty he creates in the world. He’s a treasure, and we have always loved his work. My Sweet Relief from his first solo album is a really special example of that. It gave Kellie and I all the feelings. If you haven’t heard it, you should.

I hope that you had a restful day full of peace, joy, love and all the delicious snacks you wanted. You deserve it, bud.

Take care,

Matt