The Ordinary Instant

Writing about photos, a continuation

“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”—Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

It’s been a long week and writing about grief and loss has somehow been the most relaxing part. Who would have thought that spending more time with a photo of my dead father would bring me such joy? I joke. It is all hard. Everything is hard. Writing, no matter what I’m writing about, just happens to be the most natural part of my life. It isn’t easy, but sometimes it’s the only time I don’t need to remind myself to breathe.

I’ve been thinking about Joan Didion and The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion’s memoir written after the death of her husband (while her daughter was in the ICU). We don’t have a grief-book syllabus, but if we did, Joan Didion’s name would be at the top.

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion writes, “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death.”

Grief as a place is the kind of idea I want to keep thinking about before I say more. It certainly feels relevant to our recent writing prompt when I talked about photos (and babies in bars).

Last week’s prompt involved choosing a photo, writing down the factual details of the photo and then taking a break before actually writing about the picture. Taking a break is important, especially when we’re writing about grief and mourning. Fresh eyes help. Rest helps. More caffeine helps me, too.

After taking a break, I realized I hadn’t gone deep enough or really explored everything I could do with a photo.

I wanted to keep playing with this idea already, write my way into something bigger and more substantial. My goal: to write about this image in new ways, to reconsider what I had not considered before.

And if you’re playing along at home, here are the three exercises to consider: