Asking The Summer To Sing In Me

How Processing Art Has Helped Me Process Grief

Lately, grief is a subject in most of the art I’ve consumed. Music, writings, and movies. It has caused me to reflect through some questions around the topic of grief and my own church trauma. Even as recently as yesterday morning, the day before publishing this piece.

A few weeks ago, Angelique and I had been watching movies before bed to wind down. We watched Good Grief, Asteroid City, and Maestro. This is your spoiler alert warning for each of these titles.

All three of these films have something to do with grief and its many forms, ranging from death of a loved one and how we respond to grief of that magnitude to realizing you grieve the life you thought you’d have (and is no longer in your reach). I’ve held onto those moments in the films that snagged the fabric of my heart.

A quick note before we continue: These thoughts are not complete, nor are they meant to be concrete critiques or reviews of the art - simply quick notes and comments. They are a look into my headspace as I process my own grief about church, church hurt, loss of friendships, and floating in my faith.

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A painting of Dan Levy (Marc) by Kris Knight from Netflix film Good Grief

In Good Grief, the main character we follow is grieving his husband Oliver, who dies Christmas Eve on his way to work abroad. We learn that his life away as a writer was not what it seemed.

Oliver leaves a card. A simple handwritten card, on Christmas, as he leaves for his other lover. Here’s the kicker: Marc, his husband reads this card just shy of the one year anniversary of Oliver’s death in a moment where he is trying to move on. His friends have been supporting him in his floating. He is not well. As he reads this card it shatters the reality of his grief over the last year.

We learn, as the viewer, that their marriage was an open arrangement - although reluctantly. To Marc, it was easier than disappointing Oliver and losing him in the process. The rules were simple. Nothing long term and keep it private. “I don’t want to know.”

He takes his friends to Paris on Oliver’s dime, and there they discover there is much to grieve and lament in many of their relationships. Some, if not most of it, their own doing.

How do you waste a whole year grieving someone and find out there was more to the story you didn’t know. What do you do when it’s partly your doing, and yet - there is still betrayal in the middle of the relationship.

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In Asteroid City, amidst a larger narrative of witnessing a stage-play unfold on screen, we encounter Augie, a man grieving for his wife who has "succumbed to her illness." This is the description we receive in the film. He has spent the last three weeks keeping this information and reality from his young children as the time is “never right to tell them”. He later admits to considering abandoning his children to his father-in-law, as he doesn’t’ quite know how to deal with this new emptiness and reality ahead of him. Augie even in being a war photographer - someone who is often steeped in death and destruction - cannot handle his wife’s death in any sense of “right”. At least, he’s trying to figure out if he is. Is he?

In the middle of the play rehearsal he runs off to ask a question of the director, “Am I doing this right?” Am I playing the part of grief correctly?”

It is part of a larger question as the actor portraying Augie in the play is also the playwrights lover. The playwright has perished in an automobile accident just six months into the play. The actor is grieving himself and he’s trying to understand it all and wondering if he is able to convey grief on stage correctly.

“Is he doing this right?”

How do we grieve? How do we respond to the internal and external realities and how do we know if we’re grieving well? Does it always look “right”? Every time? The same way?

The last film we watched was Maestro. This film follows Leonard Bernstein - though not specific or always with the explicit meaning behind why we’re watching the interactions on screen beyond understanding just a bit more of the idiosyncrasies of Bernstein. Cinematically, I loved this movie. The shots, the choice of lighting and film over digital, as well as aspect ratio. Just beautiful. It creates textures in more ways then one.

I love the complicated things, or at least I appreciate the acknowledgment that some things are more complicated than they seem on the surface. Remember when I mentioned the open relationship in Good Grief? Yeah, that’s not the agreement in Leonard’s life. In fact, it’s not an open marriage and although Felicia catches on and knows about his affairs she also tells Leonard he’s getting worse at hiding them in public. This is a one sided deal.

There’s a few lines that Felicia says to Leonard, as well as her sister-in-law, that hit far into the depths of a hurting heart. It’s an interaction in the middle of the film where we see a peek behind the curtain of a man who seems to always need to be the life of the party, grand and lauded. He is deeply sad. He quotes a line from Edna St. Vincent Millay: “Summer sang in me a little while, it sings in me no more.”

She replies “If the summer doesn't sing in you, then nothing sings in you. And if nothing sings in you, then you can't make music.”

I don’t know if this response means that only summer is what causes song in us, but I believe it’s meant to say that if the warmth and brightness of summer cannot cause some visceral reaction in Leonard, then he is no place to create as he is meant to. Grand, powerful and beautiful music. He is not truly living. his wife can see that and know that about him. She wants him to be what she knows he can, and she speaks it aloud.

What do the people around us allow us to feel but also speak to? What do they acknowledge or ignore? Do they positively or negatively affect our grieving?

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Cover art by Natalie Lauren Sims for We Go On, an album by Swoope.

On to the music. I’ve been enjoying the album, We Go On, by Swoope. I recently listened to an interview about this album and one gem - of many - that stuck with me is the idea that as we grieve and share that journey it allows space and permission for others to grieve. In his album, he talks about grieving the life and career he thought he’d have, the death of his mother, the realities of being black in America. Swoope has not shied away from hard topics and his pen game is top-tier.

John Onwuchekwa or “John O”, opens this album with the idea of coffee and bitterness and how if we’ll work through the bitterness and wait, we’ll find sweetness from the fruit we’re brewing - but a lot of people just add cream and sugar to avoid and escape bitterness altogether and are never rewarded with sweetness beyond the initial bitter flavor. He likens this to experiencing grief. There is a sweetness beyond the bitterness of grief, but we must endure it. We cannot avoid or “water it down” if we are to truly experience that which is on the other side.

As someone who spent some time in the coffee scene in the city of Seattle, I appreciate this metaphor. There’s a roasting company out of California who stands by giving their employees espresso whenever they’d like as it allows them to be familiar with what the coffee should taste like. It is the base for every other espresso drink, it must be in tune in order to appreciate anything else added. Swoope says something to this effect in the titular song of the album.

“This cup of coffee is painting a portrait of me, take the bitter and just throw it in the sea. But I need to taste the difference of the bitter so I'll know it when it's sweet.
Take the Good with the bad, take the hood with the class.
Take the Rain with the sun, take the pain when it comes.
Catch a break when you can, catch a wave with the fam
Let go let go control, it's chasing the wind, and just go on.”

Will we actually speak the hard things out loud? Will we explore the depths of our grief? Will we allow the hard parts of that grief to see light of day?

I understand that there’s just bad bitter coffee out there, but I think John and Portrait Coffee get that too. As a side note, you should read Johns writings and you can start by following his Substack below.

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So where does this all leave me?

I’ve been thinking about my own journey in grief. What am I grieving about the last handful of years. If I hold the contents of them in my hand and spread them around like sand on a beach, I could find a few moments that continue to bring a hard shudder in my soul. I’ve written about forgetting voices of people who I used to see multiple times a week. I can barely remember memories anymore. I stopped drinking coffee I would drink everyday, from a company I helped get started. I tried working coffee in Texas. The trauma was just still too real. It was hard to not stay anxious and in the end it cost me my job. I quit before I would be let go. I used to be in ministry. The new reality is that I have stepped into a church service less than 10 times since I moved back to Texas.

I miss the ministry. I miss being excited for it. I miss teaching Scripture - to students and adults alike. I miss living out what I believe I was made for: distilling the stories of Scripture and life and speaking to the hearts of those in front of me. I live fully into the things that I am a part of. Family, friend groups, career. Right now, my career is in a transition. I’ve already mentioned the transition from vocational ministry. Which was reluctantly ripped from me. Even though I blew up. Even though I said, “Enough.” Even though I was lamenting - and being tormented by - the fallout of friendships who’s shores had been attacked by the battle ships of COVID, racial unrest in the country, minor misunderstandings and major missteps from frie- acquaintances by the end of it all.

I grieve that even though there are shared experiences from that community by many who walked away before I did. It simply wasn’t enough to tie the bonds back that had been severely damaged by the razor sharp edge of trauma. I am deeply saddened by my own inability to stay in touch with some of those dear friends. Deep friendships that are irreparably broken. Shattered like a marble when struck too hard. It can’t be put back together. Not the same way. Some edges may still cut us. Some pieces broke away too far and too fast to have seen which corner of the room they fell away to.

I am grieving never sending this draft or another to my former best friend. I am grieving Sunday lunches and hangouts in my front yard. I am grieving the fact that the city I married my wife in is no longer ours. I am grieving the loss of spark for digital ministry. I don’t know how to step back into it until I have reckoned with where I stand with my Lord and Savior. I’ve been holding him at arms length for a bit.

In this last season, it's felt like I've been afloat in the vastness of the ocean. No real direction, and no end in sight. There's a song I love by NEEDTOBRETHE called Mercy's Shore. This painting depicts the tension of hope in the middle of chaos.

"I see the light, but never find the surface. I don't know if I can swim no more. White knuckles and wild horses - one day we'll wash up on Mercy's Shore."

We'll get there one day, to our final destination, with little doing of our own. There will be wild and rough terrain ahead. For now, I'll float and every now and then I'll try swimming again just to see what's left in the tank. wether that’s writing pieces like this, or reengaging in the digital ministry world I used to be immersed in.

I worked my last day at Sonic this week and now I'm free to sub at my hometown school district. I've got my weekends back and I can attend a small little church we like. I am thankful for this small little church. A community who is faithful in the midst of it’s own grieving this year. My mind, heart, and soul appreciate these new waves as they are pulling and pushing me closer to shore.

May we all find Mercy’s Shore.