Writers Block, Musings on Death, Two Films and Loved Ones Gone

His Three Daughters

My latest struggles with writing cause me to wonder if it’s all over. Is my mind starting to fade? Is this the beginning of the end? I used to be able to put a thousand words on paper with ease. I could conjure a piece of fiction upon request. I could sit down for hours and write only stopping occasionally to stretch. Is that gone? Forever?

Here I search for a topic. Many flit through my brain through the course of a normal day. But they don’t alight and I can’t grasp them. 

Grasp.

Why do people say, exempli gratia, I’m going to grab lunch instead of I’m going to grasp lunch? It makes as much sense.

(There has been — unnoticeable to the reader — a long pause sense the preceding sentence. The writer again is unable to find the next line, or any line, the next thought, or any thought.)

Finally…..

I am preoccupied with death, specifically my own. (This, by the way, is no way to go through life, better to enjoy each day, one day at a time and all that.) In any event the last four movies I've seen have dealt with death to one degree or another, in fact two of them were specifically about coping with the death(s) of others. These two films were All of Us Strangers (Haigh)and His Three Daughters (Jacobs). Strangers I saw initially in January during its theatrical run and again Saturday via Hulu. Daughters is a brand spanking new release now on Netflix. Strangers is a difficult film to capsulize but suffice it to say it is the story of a man dealing with the death of his parents which occurred many years before when he was twelve. There’s another critical element to the story but discussing that would be a major spoiler. Mourning periods can last a few days, months, years or a lifetime. People process the deaths of loved ones in myriad ways. All of Us Strangers explores one person’s delayed means of coping and gaining a sense of closure. It's an unusual film in the best possible sense and is highlighted by a great performance by the brilliant Andrew Scott.

His Three Daughters is about a father at home in hospice surrounded by his three grown daughters who are ostensibly there to aid in his transition from the living. While Dad is the raison d'etre for their presence there is much more to the story than that. The sisters are not terribly close, there are old wounds, resentments and misunderstandings — a dying parent adds another layer of stress. The film has been -- aptly -- called a chamber piece. Most of it is set in a New York apartment and most of the screen time is occupied by the three daughters wonderfully realized by Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne. None of them are acting, they are embodying characters in such a powerful way as to make a potentially depressing story enthralling.

When my mother died I was nonplussed. I’d had very little contact with her for the previous twenty-five years. She was a paranoid schizophrenic who’d made my childhood….not perfect. I shed no tears upon her passing.In the years that followed  I posthumously forgave her and grieved not her death but her life. God how I wish fate had been kinder to her and thus to me.

My father’s death was a different matter. It was slow and we had plenty of time to prepare. Sixteen years later I’m still processing it and dealing with feelings about him. I’ve written a lot about him and he will be the topic of a talk I’m giving at a Finnish Independence Day celebration in December. He is something of a hero to me though I recognize his flaws all too well. 

I’ve had to suffer the premature losses of most of my close friends, two of whom died within a few months of each other, both unexpectedly. It was not long after my only brother had died too.

I miss them all and it’s interesting to note how frequently they and my father appear in my dreams, always alive and well. It’s impossible to accept the permanence of the death of a loved one. It’s natural that we talk and hope of seeing them on the other side.

A former student of mine, who I see from time to time because he’s best friends with one of my nephews, suffered the death of his son last Christmas Day. The day before the boy was to turn six-years-old. That’s an unimaginable type of pain, probably the worst there is. Life is so cruel that the internal question why most constantly be asked, if never answered. 

But we the living owe it to ourselves to cherish everyday as best we can. That’s quite simple in principle but for someone such as myself who suffers from occasional bouts of horrid depression it’s not manageable. I guess one has to do the best they can.

Well I’ve at least given lie to the notion that my writing is dead. I’ve completed this later in the day after starting in the morning but it still constitutes a decent bit of writing, particularly given that I taught a class, graded papers and planned a lesson in the interim. I’ve also been wracked by depression. Completing this helps. Thanks to anyone who read this far.