Ryan Tofil 2/11 Response

[Anonymous]

#387

I immediately felt a connection to the line about the body and mind in relation to phone calls made: “In the days following my father’s death…  I can also still feel—my body remembers—my back slump when I had to redial and go through the process again…”  I remember clearly the images and feelings I experienced when I heard about my brother’s death when being told over the phone many miles away.  The images I experienced at that time were so clear that I feel as though they really happened.  Oddly, I feel my mind was more physically active than my actual body. Below is a poem I wrote at the time about the experience:

 
What It’s Like When Your Brother Commits Suicide 
after your mother tells you
her voiced pitched in a way you have never heard her use
she hands the phone to someone else
and that voice says     did you hear all that
you say                yes
and hang up the phone
then you go over to the food you were just about to eat
and tell the person standing there
who knows something bad has happened
you tell her
then you sit down to eat
because you know you won’t feel like eating later
but you find yourself staring at the food
thinking now might be a good time to cry
so you get up
but it’s hard to get up
and you see yourself in a forest
and wonder why you’re even thinking about a forest
two tall pine trees
side by side
and for some reason
the earth shakes
or one tree is shaking
as if it has an uncontrollable
itch up its spine
the tree tears itself to the forest
ripping part of your skin
you feel your legs want to give way
and you see yourself
the younger child
standing

 
Looking at this piece years later, and now having read the Arola and Wysocki’s introduction, I see that the images and feelings I wrote about start with the mind and then end with the physical body, standing.  The intro also makes me think that the mind, if it were a physical space, is much lager than the body.  Think about dreams: in a moment of nodding off to sleep, one can have a quick a one minute dream, yet one’s explanation of all that they remember from the dream can be pages long.  The mind or the soul of a person can live outside or around the body like the sea, and be endless.

I also like the line:  “Without our bodies—our sensing abilities—we do not have a world; we have the world we do because we have our particular senses and experiences.”  That line reminded me of the story I heard about Helen Keller.  Keller say’s in her autobiography that she has no memory at all of her life until the moment she was at the water fountain.  Once she connected the sensation of the running water to what was being traced on her hand, she could then connect thoughts and things to concrete reproductions, therefore enabling her to ‘have memory.”

[Anonymous]

#394

Ryan, I’m so sorry about your loss. Your poem is heartbreaking and beautiful.  I can see why this reading took you back to that terrible time as Wysocki starts with her grief at her loss of her father and the writing that helped her cope with it. Still it was brave of you to share your connection between these theoretical senses of embodiment and your real, overwhelming grief and pain.  Thank you.  — Sean

[Website Services Admin]

#395

Ryan, I’m so sorry too, and I am so glad you shared. My mom died pretty suddenly just over a year ago, and I’ve been frustrated by all of the feelings I don’t remember. With your post as context, though, I’m now wondering if my body actually remembers more than I think it does, and it’s just my mind getting in the way. Part of my block might be that I’m writing a memoir about her, so I’m trying to gather lots of memories and represent her as clearly as I can.

Your line about the mind living outside the body is so profound, and I think every person who’s lost someone could benefit from reading it.

[Anonymous]

#435

Thank you Sean and Hilarie for your words.  Hilarie, very sorry to hear of your loss.  So beautiful that you are writing about your mother.  I wrote quite a bit about my brother at the time, and anything else that came up.  Writing helped the most.

[Author]

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