I’m reading Milan Kundera’s “Immortality” ... well, slogging through it, because it’s Kundera ... and I don’t have any concrete thoughts yet, but I’m sure there is some intersection here...
My son reached for my hand in parking lots well into middle school. He use to often sit as close to me as he could when in a restaurant booth as well. Those days are so sweet, they are wonderful memories to have.
So needed this as I am a week post-college drop-off of my youngest. Even though she just now FaceTimed me to ask about a lab coat, the house is otherwise so so so quiet. Your essay helps me feel connected. Thanks.
Oh, Meg, you always move me so!... 🥹 😭 As a mother, I can't tell you how much this resonates with me. Your beautiful writing makes all the difference in the world. Thank you for all that you share of your wonderful mind and heart. Love from Portugal, Rita
PS: My daughter's name is Esperança (Hope, in English). 🙂
So basically you’re saying you are “thought of death Barbie”. Me too! 😂 This piece was so beautiful, Meg. The way you are able to string words together it feels like you are reaching deep into my soul and pulling out my thoughts and feelings that I’m unable yo articulate.
My older girls don’t reach for my hand anymore and yet I feel so deeply connected to them and that I am them and they are me and also at the very same time they are totally and completely themselves and unique and not me at all.
My 12 year old son will still occasionally let me hold his hand. And while it feels so good it is also crushing because each time I think that this might be the last.
I love this piece. It’s deep, & chewy, & tickles my brain in ways that make me feel smart. I miss my littles, but so enjoy them as adults. And the idea of all of us intermingling forever. . . families can be together forever, maybe just not the way we expect 🙂. Which is actually what I think of most “truths” learned in church (true, just not in the way we think now).
Ok, first of all: damn, this was good and true and beautiful, even beyond your usual high standard. Thank you.
I’ve also been thinking lately about how so much of the reality we inhabit has more to do with buzzing potentialities than with anything quite solid while (for me at least) dwelling too much on what’s possible can nevertheless pull me away from what’s real, gossamer-like as the real may be. Staying attuned to what is turns out to be a delicate business, and all I can do is keep practicing that attunement, maybe like the robin’s eye.
Tillie Olsen wrote “better immersion than to live untouched” in her excellent short story....after reading this I could make it’ better entanglement.... ‘
....having just buried my mom this past May, and having hugged my daughter just yesterday, this piece made me weep - loved it, thanks Meg!!!
Beautiful, Meg. I love how you bring wonder and realness back into the lonely math of quantum mechanics. I have a masters in physics and have taken quantum at both the undergrad and graduate level. Both were taught by old men who probably stopped reaching for their mother’s hand long long ago. You explain the double slit experiment so well and with so much more humanity than any other explanation I’ve heard.
Existential crisis...check! Entanglement...could it be another word for love? After my brother died 3 and a half years ago, I remember looking at my dead brother in his coffin (first time writing these words...out loud so to speak) and thinking: here's my brother, but he's not. It's like something was missing. Like his body wash not him after all. That what made him him, was not there anymore. I remember using that example toe "testify" of the afterlife...because I knew in my bones that he did not disappear out of existence somehow. We can't even get rid a of a plastic bag off this earth, but somehow all that he was, isn't anymore? Anyway, reading this brilliant piece just reminded me of that realization I got in that horrible moment.
I’m reading Milan Kundera’s “Immortality” ... well, slogging through it, because it’s Kundera ... and I don’t have any concrete thoughts yet, but I’m sure there is some intersection here...
My son reached for my hand in parking lots well into middle school. He use to often sit as close to me as he could when in a restaurant booth as well. Those days are so sweet, they are wonderful memories to have.
I love the way your brain works, Meg. This was lovely!
So needed this as I am a week post-college drop-off of my youngest. Even though she just now FaceTimed me to ask about a lab coat, the house is otherwise so so so quiet. Your essay helps me feel connected. Thanks.
Oh, Meg, you always move me so!... 🥹 😭 As a mother, I can't tell you how much this resonates with me. Your beautiful writing makes all the difference in the world. Thank you for all that you share of your wonderful mind and heart. Love from Portugal, Rita
PS: My daughter's name is Esperança (Hope, in English). 🙂
So basically you’re saying you are “thought of death Barbie”. Me too! 😂 This piece was so beautiful, Meg. The way you are able to string words together it feels like you are reaching deep into my soul and pulling out my thoughts and feelings that I’m unable yo articulate.
My older girls don’t reach for my hand anymore and yet I feel so deeply connected to them and that I am them and they are me and also at the very same time they are totally and completely themselves and unique and not me at all.
My 12 year old son will still occasionally let me hold his hand. And while it feels so good it is also crushing because each time I think that this might be the last.
What is this life?!
I love this piece. It’s deep, & chewy, & tickles my brain in ways that make me feel smart. I miss my littles, but so enjoy them as adults. And the idea of all of us intermingling forever. . . families can be together forever, maybe just not the way we expect 🙂. Which is actually what I think of most “truths” learned in church (true, just not in the way we think now).
Ok, first of all: damn, this was good and true and beautiful, even beyond your usual high standard. Thank you.
I’ve also been thinking lately about how so much of the reality we inhabit has more to do with buzzing potentialities than with anything quite solid while (for me at least) dwelling too much on what’s possible can nevertheless pull me away from what’s real, gossamer-like as the real may be. Staying attuned to what is turns out to be a delicate business, and all I can do is keep practicing that attunement, maybe like the robin’s eye.
Stricken by reading this with my nine day old on my chest.
Tillie Olsen wrote “better immersion than to live untouched” in her excellent short story....after reading this I could make it’ better entanglement.... ‘
....having just buried my mom this past May, and having hugged my daughter just yesterday, this piece made me weep - loved it, thanks Meg!!!
Okay, I cried reading this Meg. Okay, actually am crying.
“Space and time are not the threads of existence, entanglement is.”
I am so often caught up in thinking about how profound it feels to me to exist as both daughter and mother at the same time.
Thank you for this gorgeous piece.
Wow. Incredibly beautiful. Thank you.
Crying rocking my youngest as I finish reading, so so good 😭 entanglement is all I want❤️
One of my favorite pieces you've written. Beautiful comments by the other readers as well.
Beautiful, Meg. I love how you bring wonder and realness back into the lonely math of quantum mechanics. I have a masters in physics and have taken quantum at both the undergrad and graduate level. Both were taught by old men who probably stopped reaching for their mother’s hand long long ago. You explain the double slit experiment so well and with so much more humanity than any other explanation I’ve heard.
Existential crisis...check! Entanglement...could it be another word for love? After my brother died 3 and a half years ago, I remember looking at my dead brother in his coffin (first time writing these words...out loud so to speak) and thinking: here's my brother, but he's not. It's like something was missing. Like his body wash not him after all. That what made him him, was not there anymore. I remember using that example toe "testify" of the afterlife...because I knew in my bones that he did not disappear out of existence somehow. We can't even get rid a of a plastic bag off this earth, but somehow all that he was, isn't anymore? Anyway, reading this brilliant piece just reminded me of that realization I got in that horrible moment.