mysteryoriley

I’m thinking of Nat tonight, wondering how he carries the mystery of Owen’s disappearance.  The mystery itself, is a heavy load.  Missing Owen is heavier, and likely to last much longer – well, for the remainder of our lives, really.

Nat and I talk often, and did so today.  He attaches himself to family and friends, so I know he’s still working within the realm of what’s so, what’s available, and what makes sense.  I have some comfort there.  I hope he does.

The accessibility of information now, as opposed to when I was his age (mid-20s), is a scary thing.  Not because it makes completing college assignments easier – that’s a plus if you have a discerning palate and a modicum of knowledge of the subject at hand.  The scary thing is the garbage that piles itself in front of finding accurate, valuable, and pertinent resources for those assignments. 

Since the new semester has just begun, Nat is managing his way through the difficulties of being in the middle of learning mode, while Owen’s memory is always folding over on itself in Nat’s internal universe.  He’s doing the work, and finding it lacking in merit.

Advertising alone, can make one nuts.  Not just print, radio, and television advertising, but the slanted news media, and the uber-abundance of web advertising that has gone nuttier than most of the students who are looking for the good stuff.  How many times have you clicked on the border of your monitor’s screen, thinking it a zone of safety, only to find that you clicked on some unseen tag or embedded code that flashes a pop-up advertisement that makes you crazy? 

Grief has many manifestations, none very uplifting.  One of the hardest demonstrations of grief, is that the act or pursuit of learning is made much more difficult, than before the death.  It’s as though that part of our brains goes on hiatus.  Not a bad thing in terms of mental and spiritual health, but one which makes our efforts to move forward, nearly impossible until the passing of time, and the lessening of the intensity of grief.

Giving our feelings a context, a container, could provide momentary relief, or so we believe.  We’re finding that without answers as to how Owen came to his end, context is confusing, and there is no container large enough. 

I’m dealing with this conundrum through my search for beauty, and only recently, more closely associated with my search for spirit, and ultimately, a stronger alignment with spirituality.  I’ve even accepted that hoping for some semblance of insanity (something around which I could draw a diagram that others who study this state of mind, could name adequately), would be relatively better than this unknowable, unanswerable, unimaginable thing called “the mystery”. 

As I drove home tonight, I kept singing Fresh Garbage, a song from my early teens, by a group named “Spirit”.  This was the late 60s…and Nat has probably never even heard their music.  Owen had, and we talked about the group and their short-lived career as that particular band.  I don’t know where the individual musicians went from that point forward.  Owen liked both the title, “Fresh Garbage”, and the name of the band, “Spirit”.  I hope Nat can find something useful in these words, and in the sentiment of tonight’s post.  For this evening, I ask only this for my older son - that he lets the spirits in, and the garbage out.

Songs for the night:  Fresh Garbage, Taurus, by Spirit (Nat is a Taurus, and I was glad to find this video had combined these two compositions into one video (even though the video is limited))

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2jCmNtLSCPI

~ by Linda on February 1, 2008.

Posted in astrology, beauty, brothers, child loss, grief, friends, Nat Riley, Owen Riley, Michael Douglas Riley, Linda Siniard, loss, love, children, death, family, friends, grief, learning, Life, mothering, music, mystery, parenting, poetry, school, writing
Tags: advertising, college, Emmitt Owen Riley, Fresh Garbage, garbage, learning, Linda Siniard, Nat Riley, propaganda, spirit, spirituality, Taurus