Grief, Judgment, Courge

February 23, 2025

A few days after the first night I spent with the man who would become my husband, Andy sent me a Valentine: a photo of Jackson Pollack at work that he had embellished, with little red hearts flying from the painter’s brush and dappling his canvas.

Andy would make me a Valentine every year for 40 years. I made them for him for 39 years. A few days before his death, I told him that I would make him a Valentine every year for the rest of my life, a promise I have kept. This year was the fifth. As usual, I was plunged into grief all day.

That grief surfaced anew the following morning when Scott Simon, the host of NPR’s Weekend Edition, read a letter that the Russian activist and opposition leader Alexei Navalny wrote to his wife Yulia about six months before he died in prison. Playfully he reflects on how “I hate glass,” because, in the rare visits he is allowed with his beloved, they are separated by a glass wall to which they always press their hands in a poor imitation of touching. “Sooner or later,” Navalny reflected, “we’ll melt [the glass] with our hands.” 

I burst into tears when I heard this story, knowing I wept not only for a love between partners that was as big as Andy’s and mine, but also because of Navalny’s huge courage. He fought Vladimir Putin’s corrupt government, even though he knew his resistance would probably cost him his life. It did. And now my own country is under assault by an oligarch

You might think that these storms of grief and admiration would enhance my capacity for kindness and compassion. No, instead, I got grumpy and judgmental. At a meeting, I barely controlled my impatience when somebody talked for what, in my opinion, was too long. I got annoyed at the woman in the bookstore, where I went later that day, because I had to spell “Navalny” for her three times before she could find the book I wanted.

“He was so brave!” I wept later to a friend. “Why are there no brave people in America to do what he did?”

On Sunday mornings I go to a 90-minute session of freestyle dance. Sometimes people dance alone, sometimes with others. I love dance, because movement helps me resolve problems and come to understandings that I could never reach or even describe in any other way.

Today I started out on the floor, trying to grope or punch my way through something thick and viscous. Eventually the movement showed me that my righteous judgmentalism was really roped both to grief for Andy and for America and to my own regret that I’m not even a fraction as brave as Alexei Navalny.

I started dancing more freely. Then I remembered the question my therapist used to ask me long ago: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

I love that question. I ask it of myself whenever I’m delaying doing something I feel called to do.

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” I asked now, shifting briefly from bodily to verbal language.

The answer was easy. There are two people in the group who are wonderful dancers, and they often pair up to do very expressive movements. I always wished I could dance with them. So I went to them and engaged, and the three of us began dancing together. Something opened, something resolved. 

I don’t want my grief to become a weapon wielded against others. I want to express courage in my way. I can’t be a leader like Navalny. But I can join life’s dances, or even just put myself in their path… and see what happens.

 Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

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Dancing with Fear