Author: Erica Wheadon

We’ve stopped saying goodbye. On some days he is so close to the veil that he can make out the shapes behind it. Other times lucidity flashes across his face like lightning – bright-eyed between micro sleeps – and he can remember the names of castles and his childhood best friend. I’ve lost count of the “you need to come in and see him now” phone calls. I’ve already walked through that door more times than I believed myself capable of. 

I don’t remember my parents ever holding each other’s hands out of love. They are long estranged and there will never be forgiveness or closure. But today there was a kind of love. Not out of pity, but compassion. Their collective trauma is encoded in my cells and it is now mine to transform, and transformation, as it turns out, begins with courage. I’ve been angry for so long. And dismissive. It burns energy that I can no longer spare. 

When he wakes up tomorrow, he won’t remember that we were even there. And we don’t owe him the fleeting moments of happiness we choose to give. But I’m beyond who owes who what now. Grief is a slow leak. Moments are all we have.

Yeah I know. A calendar is a construct and 31 is a number etc. etc. but since I like a bit of ritual and reflection, here’s a quick and dirty list of forty lessons I’ve taken away from this clusterfuck of a year.

1. The human race is fragile and resilient in equal measure.
2. We are a speck in our species’ evolution.
3. It’s easy to lose sight of this when you are mired in and overwrought with sadness.
4. Staying on the fence isn’t always impartiality. Sometimes it’s preservation.
5. Talent emerges from hard work but also privilege.
6. Literary magazines don’t give a shit about your high distinctions.
7. The human body can reduce itself to a shadow and still refuse to die.
8. Pre-grief is a slow leak.
9. Loneliness is a vast emptiness that few understand.
10. Stasis is another word for survival.
11. If you can’t write, read. Then try again.
12. Most of my fears are in my mind. That doesn’t make them less real.
13. Family isn’t a fairytale. Sometimes, no one is coming to save you.
14. You can scare a dragonfly to death.
15. The makers of Fitbit are responsible for a sizeable percentage of the world’s landfill. And they know it.
16. Compression is the bane of my existence.
17. I pared that sentence back.
18. I watched a lot of television this year and I’m not mad about it. Spinning Out, Homeland, Yellowstone, Star Trek: Discovery, His Dark Materials, The Expanse, You’re the Worst, Fleabag, The Queen’s Gambit and Raised by Wolves were standouts. I also re-watched Yuri on Ice and Smash at least twice.
19. Reading makes you a better writer. This year my favourite books were: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong), Abandon Me (Melissa Febos) Book of Mutter (Kate Zambreno), An Unquiet Mind (Kay Redfield Jamieson), Manic (Terri Cheney), The Balloonists (Eula Biss), Darkfall (Indigo Perry), and Lying (Lauren Slater).
20. If you don’t make room for what’s possible, you can’t possibly expect it to arrive.
21. Everything is a construct. The calendar year, time, our age, the names given to us. Status, wealth, social expectations, behavioural responses, psychiatric designations. Some of it is useful. Much of it is not.
22. We’re all going to die at some point. Some of us, much sooner.
23. A magnolia in full bloom has less life expectancy than a butterfly and it is, in fact possible to think about this too much.
24. The internet can convince you that you’re a terrible person.
25. If you read my search history, you will learn how to identify the colour persimmon, how to save a tomato plant (tip, you can’t), where Mina Loy was buried and what constitutes an overdose.
26. Social media is a misnomer.
27. Get in there and help, or shut the fuck up.
28. Educate. But also
29. Online vitriol does not add, it subtracts.
30. The opposite of what you know is also true.
31. I wrote over 100,000 words this year. Approximately 85.4% of them will never see the light of day.
32. Most of the human race doesn’t breathe properly.
33. Scotch is surprisingly, pretty great.
34. Motherhood doesn’t end when your children become adults. It begins.
35. Watching figure skating is valium for the soul.
36. It takes approximately 90 days to break an addiction. Today is day 76.
37. The only reason one should become an artist is when they can’t bear the thought of being anything else.
38. Silence is the first creative act.
39. Astrology is subjective. But so is everything.
40. The body always knows.

It’s not always easy for me to exist in this space, so regardless if you’re a reader or a passer-by, thanks for being here.

See you on the flip side. x

As a child, I would visit my grandmother and together we would pick blackberries off bushes in a nearby common, our hands and mouths stained with purple. I’m sure that the common was just a thicket of trees, but to me it was a forest, and it was magic. She was the first to teach me how to ground myself, to reconnect with the earth, and that walking, and trees, and dogs and birdsong was its own kind of healing. 

When she died, I was fourteen – having only seen her four times in my life. I had such little time with her on this earth, so blackberries are more than nostalgia to me, they’re a symbol of simplicity, and healing.

At the start of the year, I bought a blackberry plant of my very own. I had no illusion that it would bear an abundance of fruit, but it has been sitting on my back deck since January and I have been tending to it protectively, nonetheless. About a month ago, a tiny little red fruit sprouted and I felt a little pinprick of pride. Life goes on. I had proof.

41, and I’m still not sure how to measure a year.  In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee…(thanks Jonathan Larson) (#nerd). Probably more along the lines of… in whisky, in first drafts, in new books and medication. Doesn’t really have the same ring to it. 

I’m not sure how it’s been a year since 40. What the fuck, world. I’d demand a do-over, but it’s been a pretty good year, world-going-to-hell notwithstanding.  I won’t lie, my interpretation of ‘pretty good’ is a little different now to what it used to be. It’s been the first (relatively) drama-free year in a long time. I mean, unless you can count thesis writing and the slow-release-grief that comes with losing a parent inch by fading inch. 

So what’s changed. Perspective, I guess. Social, political, intellectual. I stopped for a moment and the world kept turning. And so I began to do it more often. Finetuning. Finding my feet.  It was also a Neptune Square year for me, one I had been dreading initially but it brought a welcome introspection. What did I want to take into my new world? What weight needed to be removed, adjusted?

‘Grateful’ is no longer a platitude.  My year has been uneventful compared to so many. I owe so much to my incredible husband and daughter. My family. Those who were wading through shit 10 inches deep, but still reached out to steady me.  To those who listened. You are a gift. My teachers and supervisors, who bore much of my mental weight in a year where they were facing funding cuts and potential job losses.

In the maelstrom that has been 2020, silence has been a protective measure. Normally when I go to ground, I am mired in self-destruction, but this year it was a sanctuary. And in it, I found a little discipline. Fasts, yoga, water, sunshine.  I found a great doctor, and a few chemicals that finally agreed with my brain. I learned to turn off the songs that would trigger me into regression (I can’t promise that this one is permanent, but it’s a small victory). I finally had my eyes re-tested. (hallelujah). When things seemed impossible, I returned to the forest. Feet on the earth. Wind on my face. Birdsong.

I found some astrological teachings that changed everything I thought I knew and weight turned to lightness. Karmic relationships took on new meaning. Up was now down. North became south. I was once asked whether I wanted to be right or whether I wanted to be free. Never has that been clearer than right now. I have learned to observe the tragedies and losses of this year privately. I no longer feel as if I need to justify my involvement, prove my allegiance, tear flesh from limbs.  

I should have been packing to go to Japan this weekend, and I’m trying not to be sad about that, because all things considered, if that is the worst thing to happen this year, then I am fortunate. Instead, I get to celebrate my daughter’s 21st next week with family and friends. How lucky I am. 

Finally, as of last night and after two and a half (long) years, I have finally satisfied all of the requirements for my Masters degree, finishing with an 85 (WAM) (approx. 6.8 GPA). I had been saving the bottle of Moët that my brother gave me on my 40th for the occasion, so it was remarkable that this came through exactly a year later. I’m not sure I’ll be able to cross the stage in 2021, but for now, this is enough.  

After a few weeks of slowly ripening, this morning my little blackberry finally came into its own. It hangs from its branch, proud and plump, the first of its kind.