Holidays approach, People.
I have no plans. Zero.
I guess I really never pay much attention to the holidays. Other than realizing everything generally slows down and there’s a quiet to the world between Christmas and New Year’s. That quiet has been going on since March and it’s menacing because it’s not a holiday quiet, it’s a plague panic quiet. I’m tired of it. The quiet. The blanket of plague and fear that has muffled life. It goes on.
I didn’t light one candle for Hanukkah. Why? It would’ve been too sad to do it alone. I’m not that hung up on it when I’m with someone either but then at least there is someone to share the Jewness with. Usually a non-Jew in my case. It came and went this year without me even acknowledging it. It’s not because I'm a bad Jew. I am. I just didn’t want to be a bad, sad Jew alone with candles.
I’m not looking for pity. I have been spending some time with someone. I’m just trying to keep it reasonable and respectful of mine and their feelings. Realizing where I am emotionally and in my grief.
Sorrow is a true motherfucker and letting it settle as the bedrock of who I am is real. I hadn’t really identified it as such until I talked to Nicole Kidman (posting in January) about it. I don’t think I differentiated sadness from sorrow but there is a difference. Sorrow seems more expansive, more permanent, something that is just there and grows as we age but integrates into our character. Sadness is a feeling that comes and goes.
I thought I had turned a corner with my grief and maybe I had but the sorrow remains and will always be there, with me, informing the rest of my life in good ways and sad ways. I wasn’t with Lynn that long but she was the love of my life and I can live in that and let the memories come over me and they can bring that unique joy rooted in sorrow.
It seems to be happening a lot since I’ve been on a movie set. That is where Lynn and I created together so the trigger is obvious. In this role I am playing not only am I using all that I learned from Lynn as a director and fan of mine but I am using my love for her and the loss of her to inform the man I'm playing in the film.
Now, hopefully, I won’t get COVID and the film will be good.
Today I talk to musical wizard Andrew Bird who scored Lynn’s film ‘Outside In’ among many other records and things. On Thursday I talk to comedian Sam Tallent about his book ‘Running the Light,' which is one of the darkest, rawest and most authentic depictions of a road comic I have ever read. Great talks!
Happy Christmas if I don't talk to you.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron