On January, Melting, And Chris Delaney
January is not my month. I don’t feel well in January.
I’ve been a character in a story who goes down in January for a long time now. I understand and generally disagree with the enthusiastic idea of just rewriting my story. Why don’t I just decide to be Happy Man in January? It smacks of an authorial arrogance that I’ve never convincingly possessed. But I do believe in revision and the masochistic pleasure of imagining new perspectives of my January thaw.
See? I made a move right there. Being a depressed man is so boring to me. It’s an abstraction that conceals more than it says. But to thaw, to melt, to go from a frozen to a liquid state in opposition to the season is a different way to imagine my mood. It’s evocative. It doesn’t easily cohere into the conventional framework of making sense; it resists meaning while inviting wonder. To thaw in the dead of winter is unnatural—so much the better. Because in January, every January, I’m a puddle.
January is the beginning and birth is hard. So this yearly descent can be imagined as a melting into depth, to a yearly kicking into being. And then in February I learn to walk again. Or maybe January is merely the ticket booth where I pay my dues, where I buy my ticket for the circus of another year. Do you see? I don’t have a conclusion. Just a need to see things anew. My New Year’s resolution.
In spite of not knowing anything, I lean toward grief as the rich origin of both my January thaw and my imagination. There’s a laughable notion of The Grief Process, a straight line, simplified and reified for easy consumption and the repetitive squawking of parrots. But—not a line, a circle—January comes every year and with it comes the ghost of Chris Delaney and, like a pebble in my shoe, his need to be remembered in story.
The quite literal facts are that he was struck by a car and killed 26 years ago today. He was 13, dead now twice as long as he lived. So much for facts. The fantasy of Chris Delaney continues to haunt and animate my life. I look to that day as the abrupt end of my childhood and to Chris Delaney as the inexhaustible source of my childishness. His corpse in his casket shocked me into philosophy and the sound of his laughter is in the background of all my imaginal play.
I need to put you in words, Chris Delaney. I know that you live in ways far more potent than the notion of living on in shoddy memories. I need to say you. To push past merely remembering you to a more genuine form of honoring your presence by saying Hello Chris Delaney.
“The art of healing is healing into art.”
Monday, January 16, 2012
Reader Comments (8)
Hey, Chris.
Beautiful.
I always enjoy what you post. Thanks so much for writing.
Wow. "Being a depressed man is so boring to me." My sentiments exactly. So terribly boring. And exhausting. But I'd like to also say well done for acknowledging your grief.
I don't know how to grieve every anniversary...mine are becoming almost to much to bare. I like the thought of "the art of healing is healing into art. 26 years ago, I dreaded the night to end. January brings me mixed emotions..losing loved ones but bringing me you.
I say hello too.
Grief is that invisible limb no one can see, but regardless,I always feel. It will never go away. It makes us unbearably human w/ it's presence. I think we all learn to live w/ it in different ways, and"art" happens to be your medium. There is so much healing in your words. Thank you for sharing.
This is beautiful, I have my January circle too.
Hi Chris.
Hi Tom.
Both so loved