I feel buffeted––do you?–– by the unceasing parade of ––what do we call them? public murders?––anonymous murders perpetrated by my fellow humans, here and around the world, by terrorists or troubled children, agents of the state (soldiers, police) or some lone sad fuck.
These murders seem to have become a feature of our modern world, from (in my personal memory) My Lai to Columbine to this latest in Las Vegas.
I feel the need for a . . . a policy or something about noting and responding to the latest ones on my blog. They come so thick and fast, sometimes I note them, often I don't. I would like to acknowledge them somehow.
I don't think my US culture is all that great with mourning customs; we tend to overemphasize active emotions such as cheer, or anger, and don't give much time to low, slow grief.
But we used to.
Mourning art--specifically hand-stitched samplers and pictures and jewelry––was a popular form of needlework in early America. These memorials didn't have to be for someone you knew:
"Contrary to popular belief the stitchers of these memorials were not necessarily in mourning over the loss of a particular loved one but were creating a popular form of needlework. If they had no one close enough to them to memorialize, they might dedicate it to a well-known figure that had died or inscribe the tomb 'sacred to friendship', or simply leave it blank."
--via Antique Samplers
It's important, I think, to pay heed to loss and horror, sadness and shock. So maybe I'll post one of these when needed. Or maybe I'll design and stitch one--the act of embroidering is meditative---it gives grief its due.
Great post, Fresca. I think it’s always a question — do you write something, or not? No reader needs a blog post to know that some major horror has taken place, but to proceed as if nothing has happened seems (to me) impossible. But then again, what is there to say? I’d hate to just make a post in the spirit of isn’t-it-terrible-that, etc. (Which is about all I could say about some events.) Writing online in a more or less daily way makes for hard questions about a writer’s obligation to acknowledge events.
ReplyDeleteP.S.: I didn’t mean that “a post in the spirit of isn’t-it-terrible-that, etc.” is what you’re suggesting. That’s all I can sometimes imagine myself saying.
ReplyDeleteMICHAEL: Yes, you nailed it:
ReplyDelete"Writing online in a more or less daily way makes for hard questions about a writer’s obligation to acknowledge events."
P.S. Thanks, I didn't think you meant I was suggesting that either---but it's true, I, too, can't think of anything else to say except "isn't it terrible" sometimes---that's why I cast around for some art that might be a way to say that in a different way...
Oy. What a world, what a species...
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ReplyDelete