Helen, this was an absolutely magnificent piece! We just watched Hamnet last week, and I can't remember shedding tears like this for any other movie. Thank you for sharing your story and shining light into the darkness of death.
Helen, thank you for these thoughts on grief and parenting and co-creation. The futility and inexpressible value of catching falling diamonds is very much what this feels like. I just finished reading Hamnet this week, and I watched it in the theater last month, and both reading and watching was surprisingly cathartic for me. (I loved O'Farrell's interpretation of the second best bed, which is how I've always imagined it.) I resonate with your thoughts on poetry and parable and why we are drawn back to this primal need to create, to answer back to the voice who spoke us into being.
Excellent essay, Helen. Your prose, particularly in the beginning, with the Carolina sunset, was a delight. Ballet was a particularly interesting example of a fine art for this piece because excepting the stage lights, etc used for performance, it doesn’t use technology in the same way other arts do. Painters use a brush, writers a pen (or computer keyboard), but dancers use the body. (I could be totally off. I’m not a ballerina in the slightest.) With ballet being an especially embodied art form, did you find practicing ballet again affected your writing?
That’s a great question. I certainly feel it affecting my mind for the better. I feel mentally sharper and more willing to engage in the dirty work of perfecting messy bits. You’re mostly right about the tech part—-that said, the way we use music now, our shoes, etc are all in the realm of tech. But it is very embodied and I find that to be a great way of breaking free of my bad habits
Helen, this was an absolutely magnificent piece! We just watched Hamnet last week, and I can't remember shedding tears like this for any other movie. Thank you for sharing your story and shining light into the darkness of death.
Thank you, Ruth!
Helen, thank you for these thoughts on grief and parenting and co-creation. The futility and inexpressible value of catching falling diamonds is very much what this feels like. I just finished reading Hamnet this week, and I watched it in the theater last month, and both reading and watching was surprisingly cathartic for me. (I loved O'Farrell's interpretation of the second best bed, which is how I've always imagined it.) I resonate with your thoughts on poetry and parable and why we are drawn back to this primal need to create, to answer back to the voice who spoke us into being.
Thank you!
So beautiful! Thank you.
Excellent essay, Helen. Your prose, particularly in the beginning, with the Carolina sunset, was a delight. Ballet was a particularly interesting example of a fine art for this piece because excepting the stage lights, etc used for performance, it doesn’t use technology in the same way other arts do. Painters use a brush, writers a pen (or computer keyboard), but dancers use the body. (I could be totally off. I’m not a ballerina in the slightest.) With ballet being an especially embodied art form, did you find practicing ballet again affected your writing?
That’s a great question. I certainly feel it affecting my mind for the better. I feel mentally sharper and more willing to engage in the dirty work of perfecting messy bits. You’re mostly right about the tech part—-that said, the way we use music now, our shoes, etc are all in the realm of tech. But it is very embodied and I find that to be a great way of breaking free of my bad habits
Wow what a beautiful piece!
Beautiful article. How true - death cannot be managed.
This is beautiful work, Helen. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Leah!
Wonderful article! Sharing!