Caught In My Web 🕸️

Things I am currently reading/watching/contemplating #23

Art by Jocelyne De Lioncourt

The word death is not pronounced in New York, in Paris, in London, because it burns the lips. The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love. True, there is perhaps as much fear in his attitude as in that of others, but at least death is not hidden away: he looks at it face to face, with impatience, disdain, or irony. “If they are going to kill me tomorrow, let them kill me right away.”

-Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth Of Solitude

The veil and my emotional defenses are neck and neck for most thin right now. 

I don’t hate it. 

I’m full of so much love and gentle longing this time of year that writing anything resembling prose or coherence feels impossible. Like a juiced-up, overripe peach, the slightest bit of pressure (sentiment) cuts through my thin skin, making me burst into waterworks. I’ve been crying over movie trailers, ads on Instagram, and the smallest gestures from my favorite people.

A vast difference from days when I was Stone Cold Steve Austin, not a tear to be shed anywhere, anytime.

Día de Muertos is the most significant holiday of the year for me. Even in the years when I didn’t have the will to put up an altar or participate in community activities, I still treated it as an opportunity to be still with my grief, to be still with my love and yearning for my beloveds. 

These days it swirls around my household in shades of orange, red, yellow, pink, and green. Cempasúchil envelopes its fruity, ketonic aroma around my face each time I pass the altar, floating me back to childhood in our garden with Mama. My family in faraway locations send pictures of their ofrendas. We exchange notes, like what snacks, food, and drink to add because “that was their favorite.” Those real-life, tangible acts of love bring it all back to us, along with the conversation, the community, and the shared stories.

What was once long, dripping memories that clung to us at the beginning of our loved ones' departure eventually become flashes of smoke-filled shadows the longer they are gone. Now formless, the soft lilt in their voice or the exact weight of their delicate touch drifts away into the great dark nothing. 

Performing these ancient rituals of sight, smell, and taste, no matter what you believe, reserves time and space to remember our loved ones so they grow into fully formed recollections as vivid as the day they departed.

It makes no difference that they are not here physically. They deserve every bit of love, affection, and attention in death that was given in life.

What is most welcome during this holiday is that we can be our most tender selves in front of our altar. No societal graces are placed upon us. We are free to feel it all—laughing, crying, or both simultaneously. That doesn’t mean we must, but the option feels liberating.

Remembering our loved ones who no longer reside in the land of the living also brings to mind the version of ourselves that used to exist alongside them. 

Who were you back then?  

Do you long for your past self or bristle at the idea of its return? 

I ask these questions every year as I honor the memory of the different versions of myself as I honor my loved ones. Every loss transformed me; every stage of grief transmuted into a relentless drive for something more than just the dull, aching pain that was born from their physical absence. The transformation took decades, and I hold every version of her that had to fight to slough off the ever-growing, oftentimes suffocating cocoon of grief with pride and respect. 

There were many times I thought I couldn’t go on. Many moments, thinking I should crossover and join them. Here, there…what’s the difference as long as I was with them? 

If you’ve ever had to live without your closest loved ones by your side, you know grief does very wonky things to our rationale. 

Gratefully, I tussled the fuck out of those feelings, and I was able to fall madly in love with life again. 

Día de Muertos is a whirlwind of emotions and reflection that allows us to process our grief, strengthen our bond with our beloveds who have crossed the threshold into their next adventure, and deepen our relationship with ourselves.

It has been the most significant conduit for me to process the monstrous losses I’ve endured in a way that allows me to feel good being present in life here and now instead of longing to be carried to Mictlán. 

Even when I was too angry and hurt to participate, it was there with its loving embrace, welcoming me back into the fold.

And here I am, crying all over again. 

I love the tenderized version of ourselves. 🥹

Mom, Dad, Georgie, Ross, Roland, and Ali, I’ll see you this weekend.

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Here is this week’s Caught In My Web 🕸️

🕸️ Cults, curses, and magic: This surprising European city has ancient links to Halloween. Aquincum Museum in Budapest is now on my list of places I must visit.

🕸️ Chopin back from the dead after nearly 200 years!!!!!

🕸️ Exhuming Dracula’s Ancestors: What Vampires Reveal About Our Latent Fears

🕸️ RIP Gary Indiana. I'm extremely suspicious of normal people. I think that they're devious for the most part because they lie. The only way you could be normal in a society like this is to be complicit with things that are inhuman. Joseph Conrad said, I think, in Heart of Darkness that the devil of our age is not satanic and diabolical; he is just a flabby, mediocre creep. There's nothing special about him and people are foolish to fall for all his tricks because they're not very good tricks. I mean, that's what we live in now: it's just a morally indifferent and complacent, lazy-minded passive world with hordes of people just waiting for...who knows what? -from Station to Station(2015) dir. Doug Aitken.

🕸️ Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula. Eeeeek.

🕸️ Shortage of IV fluids leads to canceled surgeries. The root of the issue is explained here. “Just five large hospital buying groups purchase nearly 90 percent of the needed medicines, and only seven companies manufacture the vast majority of supply.” That was a reference to GPOs. (Since that 2011 story, the five GPO giants have shrunk to four.) “It took me five minutes to see the same anti-competitive contracting practices, the exorbitant pay-to-play fees, were creating the shortage,” Zweig said.

🕸️ I Can’t Believe I’m Writing About IV Fluid Again. There’s another critical shortage of salt and water in a bag. Hurricane Helene is only the surface-level cause; it’s really about America refusing to learn the lessons of monopoly fragility. We live in a house of cards country and my disgust grows larger every single day.

🕸️ The Perfect Girlfriend. Flirty, sexy, seductive, supportive. Your AI companion can be whatever you want her to be. And now a growing number of men are turning to bots to ease their loneliness or satisfy their kinks. The choices are endless. The emotions are real.

🕸️ Teri Garr, a Scene-Stealer in Tootsie and Young Frankenstein, Dies at 79. A legend. INGA FOREVER.

🕸️ A CONTROVERSIAL RARE-BOOK DEALER TRIES TO REWRITE HIS OWN ENDING. Glenn Horowitz built a fortune selling the archives of writers such as Vladimir Nabokov and Alice Walker. Then a rock star pressed charges.

🕸️ Currently reading The Interestings. I’m enjoying it. An easy read that sparks my curiosity but it’s not unputdownable. Which is actually nice because I’m moving through my tasks and responsibilities with a calm head instead of racing through them. Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.

🕸️ Middlemarch by Eliot George has crossed my path three times this week and I’m taking it as a sign that I need to read it soon. One of the few classics I have not read.

🕸️ Timestalker looks hilarious and it has Jacob Anderson in it.

🕸️ Loving Shrinking season 2. It’s such a cozy, feel-good show!

🕸️ Finally watched Blink Twice. Whoa. The unease it gave me was exactly what I want in a thriller. 4 out of 5 🍿🍿🍿🍿

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What Has Been Caught In Your Web 🕸️This Week?

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Love always,

Jenovia

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