‘Anticipatory Grief’ is a Story by Jincy Willett Which I am Reading

Summer’s almost gone now, summer proper anyway, and we all knew it. Weeks of bad weather had left everyone full of helpless and dumb slow sadness. Waking up to the same gray that would accompany all the day’s activities, like making eye contact with that horrible party guest we’re all equally responsible for entertaining.

I remember a week end not long ago when there was nothing to do. For a group of adults to have nothing to do is for all esteem for ourselves and one another to break down in an unfamiliar way. “A movie?” “No.” “Board game?” “Eh.” “Art?” “Just not feeling motivated.” “Reading?” “Too tired.”

It felt like one long endless funeral, apparently putting to rest the concept that we were active and inspired folks. I went home and laid in a series of uncomfortable positions on my futon, watching uninteresting shows. I stared at the spines of the books I was reading (am still reading) and they stared back at me, seemingly as okay with not being read as I was with not reading them. It’s strange when nothing calls out to you. It’s lonely to want to exist in a world where nothing seems anxious to confirm your participation.

When the sun finally broke out today, I was ready for everything to feel better, but few things really did. What felt better: walking outside and feeling warmed. Having a morning, instead of creeping under the oppressive gaze of endless crepuscularity. Witnessing that things did indeed have bright colors. What stayed the same: the sense that nothing pleasant was normal or would last. The sense that the weather was an incalculably powerful enemy, not generous, not kind. The sense that it was too little, too late, and the best weeks were gone.

Wasted, wasted weeks. Why hadn’t I written; buried myself in books and writing? Why hadn’t I spent more time at yoga or at the gym, forcing endorphins out of every nook and cranny of my soggy brain? Why was my studio coated in dust? With so much time indoors, why hadn’t I been cleaning or organizing or doing anything remotely productive? With these thoughts I’ve become acutely aware of how the weather was a factor but more an excuse: a turning away of two people in the night, one aware of it, the other not.