Synaptic

Carter surprised me with the poignancy of a meditation on the loss of his father channeled through letters to Greek gods and demi-gods. I particularly appreciated how the title and opening poem begin the exploration for both the writer and reader of “catharsis.” Knowledge of rocks with superpowers, robins as heralds of death, symbols of cardinals and seasons, fleeting and “trailing” memories as well as contexts of doors are thresholds for the writer’s journey illuminated by the intimate connections and questions to Apollo, Achilles and Epimetheus and the expansiveness of grief.

-Dr. Mary Stark

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Catharsis
 
Grief leads to disconsolation,
Leads to pain,
Leads to suffering,
Leads to agony,
Leads to indignation,
Leads to hatred,
Leads to rancor,
Leads to anguish,
Leads to exaction,
Leads to bargaining,
Leads to remembrance,
Leads to grief.
 
My dad surprised me with a present one day. He drove up to the Amana Colonies to play Pokémon Go for the afternoon with some of his friends and before he left, he decided to stop at a little shop named The Noble Stone, a crystal and mineral store. I imagine he spent at least a good three hours browsing their stunning collection because I know I would have, but this is not true. After all, as he put it, he got me crystal bacon on another rock and purple, hexagon metal, which I know as vanadinite on barite and lepidolite, respectively. I had already collected some lepidolite, a purple-pinkish stone that gets its color from manganese and is often harvested for its high concentrations of lithium, an important mineral for electronics and batteries. Metaphysically, lepidolite is a stone of peace, meant to alleviate mental trauma. It is no wonder to me that we have now even extended our uses of lithium into modern medicine as a drug for anxiety and mania knowing the use of lepidolite. But vanadinite was new to me. A quick google search told me that it was used to provide motivation and creative energies and often harvested for its high amount of vanadium, a periodic element used as a steel additive. To my dad’s surprise, it was not crystalized bacon, but rather an important ingredient in architecture and jet fuel. A few months after I added vanadinite to my collection, placing it right between the howlite and black kyanite, my dad suddenly passed away from a heart attack.
 
Disconsolation, Pain, Suffering, Agony
 
Dear Apollo,

My epidemiology professor recently told a joke about how robins are one of the biggest carriers of disease and so every spring, when the robins come back and everyone begins happily anticipating spring, she just thinks to herself, “great, here comes death.” And although it’s morbid, I partially wonder if you feel the same. I remember hearing the story about you and Hyacinth and the day Zephyr, the West wind, took him from you while playing discus. You took his body up in your arms and with him, you created the hyacinth flowers, allowing him to live on. I wonder if this is why the daylight begins growing longer in the Spring. Do you slow your chariot down so you can admire the beautiful blooms of the hyacinths so dear to you? Or does your heart grow so heavy amongst their wafting smell that your horses have trouble carrying it across the sky?

For me, it’s not the spring nor is it the robins; rather, it is the winter and cardinals that flash their crimson wings through the snowy fields. My dad loved cardinals, both the birds and the baseball team. When he died, we took his collection of Cardinal baseball team shirts and had them turned into pillows to hand out for Christmas. But unfortunately, the tailor washed his shirts before sewing them so I can no longer smell my dad like you do with hyacinths. It’s hard. Parents aren’t supposed to die until their children are old enough to take care of them; I’m barely old enough to take care of myself. Occasionally, mom puts out a little glass cardinal on the stand beside the empty loveseat and I just think about how it’s the third consecutive year that he won’t be here for Christmas. I think about how much colder and longer the nights grow in the winter.
 
Indignation, Hatred, Rancor, Anguish, Exaction
 
Dear Achilles,

How does the forest feel after the wildfire? Does the conflagration know its immolation is dying down? Or is it too caught up in its combustion?

Everyone came to our house for weeks after the funeral. They brought plants till there was no more space and cheese platters till our fridge was full. My siblings fought over random mementos and I sat quietly without resignation as we picked out an urn. Parents aren’t supposed to die until their children are old enough to take care of them; didn’t they understand that? Why did they keep giving us flowers? Didn’t they know it would be hard to get out of my bed in the morning to water them? Why did they keep giving us cheese? Didn’t they know my appetite was gone? Couldn’t they see I was slowly burning? Couldn’t they feel the inferno?

When did you know it was time to relinquish Hector’s body? I thought every day about burning those flowers, about throwing them away. Was there comfort in dragging Hector behind your chariot, inflicting the same affliction you felt on someone else? Did you know you were burning too? When did you know it was time to relinquish Patroclus? Did you learn how to forgive yourself after letting him charge into battle instead of you? Does thinking about everything you could’ve done differently when Patroclus was here ever stop? Or will I never forgive myself for every intricacy I replay in my mind? Sometimes, after the wildfire, when I feel the most inconsolable heartache, all I can do is put my fingers to my forehead and slowly pull down my cheeks with the palm of my hands until I can find the most visceral wail in my hoarse throat.
 
Bargaining, Remembrance, Grief
 
Dear Epimetheus,

I found solace from my grief in howlite. It’s a small stone that looks like white marble with charcoal veins running through it. It’s believed to slow down the hardwired machines we call brains, allowing us to think without frantically jumping from thought to thought. I feel ambivalent about its potency, however. It might actually work, but I might also just need to be told that it’s working so I feel that I’m getting better.

Half a year after my dad passed away, I felt hurt again by the door that connects Gaass to Peace Street. You see, when I first visited Central, I came with my dad. We stood outside that door while my dad played Pokémon Go and I watched all the college students pass by on their way to classes. Neither of us could ever know that two years from that day I would be living in that dorm building I was so fascinated by and my dad would no longer be standing outside of it. Hundreds of times I’ve walked through that door and right over the spot we were standing on without ever remembering it until that one day when that door felt a little heavier than normal. Parents are never supposed to die because then they don’t get to see when their children open a new door. I avoided leaving Gaass for a little bit through that door because it still feels a little heavier knowing my dad will never be on the other side when it opens.

I wonder partially if this is what it feels like being a paragon of afterthought like yourself, going through life listlessly and only giving things meaning retroactively. Were you envious of your brother, Prometheus, for getting to create everything first and you having to take care of them and give them meaning afterwards? Is that why he is the genius and you are the fool—because finding meaning in things that have already passed is lesser than finding meaning in the moment? Do you sometimes wish things had gone differently with Pandora? I often wish my dad and I had a better relationship and I did not take him for granted as something that everyone has because now he is simply a trailing thought I hold close. If it is any consolation, I think I also would have opened Pandora’s box instead of living a lifetime of contemplating what it might’ve been.