It’s Time to Bury Our Dead

On the first day of spring, I attended a writing workshop with the following prompt: gravity. Even session after session, I had not yet faced a dearth of ideas. I am a world-builder and it’s a fruitful outlet for craft practice. This particular day, though, I was nearly stumped during a 20-minute write. I finally scribbled a fictionalized scene from a supper club event I attended the year before.

The mood was rich, with tension quickly developing between two strangers as they were pulled closer and closer. It was a remembrance of a time past among old friends and new, filled with merriment and some light seduction. There was a buffet of savory food amongst vibrant conversation and boisterous laughter. I lived in that short piece with plans to lengthen it.

I messaged the real life hostess from the story, relaying her immortality on a page somewhere far away. I didn’t profusely thank her this time as I did in the past, when the grief was still fresh. I just said I missed those times and wished her a Happy Spring. With such an unpredictable future, the change of seasons was one of the only sure things. My menagerie of plants has grown so much this year, just as I did.

I sat in stillness for a while, just thinking about this dimly lit scene of nearly colliding characters on the verge of… something. Surely something magical. A possibility was there that made me joyful, as fondness washed over me. Then I had a thought:

It’s time to bury our dead.

That scene cannot come now or even much later. It is gone. After so much denial, I think it’s time to put that world to rest, but keep it lovingly preserved by sharing it.

I laid spring flowers on the memory of one year ago and the time before then, when I had so much hope in myself and my actualization. Speaking and living truth had blossomed in the months before. I finally felt a settling in my soul. But I don’t want to hope for a world which won’t return the way I want it. Our vision of the future, I believe, is clouded by our expectations. We will continue to disappoint ourselves trying to relive those faded snapshots knowing what real risk is still in the air. We will, for months and months to come, move among strangers like repelling magnets.

Virtual connections are what we have now. Veritable community landmarks remain shuttered. Tenuous grasps of physical contact are the norm as some of us step out cautiously for meals with friends, walks, and shopping trips. A society as yet unformed will emerge, but I no longer concern myself with when that will occur. We can only shape our present circumstance to build that new future and adapt to what may be intermittent re-isolation.

There is joy to be found, though, even on this downtrodden path. Embracing the present is what brought me back to writing in earnest, back to building community, back to self-discovery, and self-love.

I guess it’s the acceptance stage, when you look upon your life with gratitude. You’re not invested in the what-ifs much anymore and focus on what’s in your control. You made it all the way here when many did not. There is peace in surviving and growing.

I want to honor the memories of dancing at clubs and house parties, of packed bars where people shouted their greetings. But I also want to let them go. The weight is heavy and I am tired. I need all my strength for what’s right in front of me.

I lost a colleague last year this time, as many others did. I knew I came far when a group of us at work imitated his mannerisms and accent, telling hilarious anecdotes, all smiles. One among us never met him but lit up just listening. No sadness there. No tears.

A memory can be sweet. It can be savory and satisfying, even though the ache to go back still burns. And then you glance at it once more and put it away, where it always remains, resting and sacred.