November 24, 2024

preparing for endings

Welcome to Mommy’s El Camino.

What’s this all about?

An odyssey, going from my house to my mother’s house, and from there to her doctor’s appointment, then to the taco shop, and over the hill, ascending then descending on the Sepulveda Pass, and toward the ocean, to the elder care law office, where we would sign important papers again.

We’d done this signing of papers in her backyard in January 2021, when covid cases were common and spiking and there were no vaccines yet. I used legal zoom and still there were holes in the paperwork and things to fix and adjust.

My mother and my grandmother seemed always in preparation for an end. Their ends, mainly. My mother, still. My grandmother prepared for her end by pre-paying for her funeral expenses—lifting a tremendous weight for us, her daughter and granddaughter, a weight that is becoming even more fathomable as my mother gets closer to her end, and I, mine.

My mother is in the process of preparing for her end—she began pre-paying for her funeral costs in the past two years, and then there was this attorney visit this week. The relief I felt, carrying all the paperwork to my house, proper and orderly in a big burgundy binder with tabs that slid neatly into its own case.

*

This month, this year, marks 20 years ago that my partner and I met. We’d both started at the same workplace that month. We were friends for a few years before we left our then-partners, (in my case, husband). I joked this week about how funny it was that we met in the month of November, and our kid was also born in November. Those endings, though. An immeasurable pain, that I felt and that I caused, that delivered me into this life.

*

This week in the class I teach we were finishing reading Myriam Gurba’s book Creep and she was a guest over Zoom. Myriam explained how she had had to write the final chapter—the hardest—before she could write the rest.

It made me think about how in the past few weeks, I have considered, am still considering, flipping the chapters of my book-in-progress, so that what I had outlined as the end was actually the beginning, to see what that form looked like.

I love talking about how to write endings with students. A long time ago I went to a workshop given by Lidia Yuknavitch. She had a great suggestion about endings that I carry with me in my pocket, rubbing like a stone over and over, as I consider the endings of essays, books I’m writing. Preparing their endings.

*

My partner’s chemo treatments will, if everything goes as planned, end by the end of this year.

*

I’ve either tied up or am in the midst of tying up all the loose tv shows I’ve watched recently—the endings, in some cases, are show finales. My Brilliant Friend, Interview with the Vampire, Somebody, Somewhere, Sort Of, What We Do In the Shadows, Curb Your Enthusiasm. The Old Man. Griselda. The Diplomat. The Penguin.

As I list them out I realize how far and how long I’ve stayed away from the news.

There is a powerful urge to rewatch at least one from the beginning—My Brilliant Friend. We didn’t want it to end and we don’t have to let it end if we watch it again. The 14-year-old is coming to the end of the book, her first time reading it, as I’m starting it again, a second read. I know how it ends—I’ve read them all, but I wasn’t prepared for the show to end, a case of no preparation for ending.

That’s the scariest part of real-life endings to me—the feeling of being unprepared for them, knocked off balance. ‘Balance’ is elusive enough.

I’ve refreshed the altars. Removed a lot of books, opened up a room, tried out new routines and habits. I’ve gone back to the ocean. The dark comes way too early for me but my house is lit, warm, and comfortable. I’m preparing.

Pre-order the reissues of my books, coming in April 2025 from Northwestern University Press

Excavation: A Memoir

Hollywood Notebook: Essays

Bruja: A Dreamoir