Coming back to a writing life... Morder, "The Overstory," and why this feels urgent

My intentions to get back to my regular writing practice were derailed again over the last winter and through spring, this time by a wrenching personal experience - the dying and death of my oldest sister, one of the most profound relationships in my life. Thing about a loss like this is that there is upheaval on so many layers of one's life, and about all one can do is allow that to be what it is. What it is, is different for each of us. For me, it pretty much shut down my capacity for creative writing. I had to accept that. I had to let it be. Fighting it, pulling up a draft and staring at it helplessly, wasn't doing me any good.

It integrates. Takes time, but eventually it integrates. The context for the grief gets larger with time, the psychological room for it. The space gets bigger. This does not take anything away from the intensity, or those moments when it strikes again like a powerful ocean wave that washes over and for a moment takes everything with it. The grief can still be overwhelming, but it also begins to take on its own story, to reveal, to be comforting, to become a spiritual resource in which to rest, to find wisdom, to bond with the rest of the grieving world.