Thank you to everyone who joined for this session!
Twenty-one Zoom participants gathered to read and discuss the poem โThe Raincoatโ by Ada Limรณn from Milkweed Editions, The Carrying, 2018, posted below.
Without knowing the narratorโs age or gender, we contemplated what seemed like โlooking backโ at a time when surgery is suggested for a young person diagnosed with what we read as a chronic condition involving the spine. A mother and child spend a lot of time in the car together as attempts are made to attend to the conditionโto โunspoolโ the spine, release breath and bodily pain. A musician comments on the way pain impedes singing. Someone suggests that multiple factors–spending time with mother, massage, and musicโtogether play a part in the narratorโs development of an โunfettered voiceโ not only as s/he sings in the car but also in the creation of this poem. We notice the shape of the lines on the page: falling in place like the interlocking bones of the spine. More than one person senses that, in the time of the poem, when the grown narrator drives to โanother spine appointmentโ the mother is no longer alive. As the narrator reaches the age the mother was โthenโ questions arise about her time and effort making all those trips to the physical therapist, orthopod, and masseuse. While driving, another mother is seen taking off her raincoat and giving it to her young daughter. We recognize the narratorโs remembrances and the โaha momentโ of gratitude in the words โmy whole life Iโve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet.โ The raincoat: an example of metonymy, one word taking the place of so much more.
After receiving the prompt โWrite about a raincoat that keeps you dry,โ we wrote for four minutes. Four people read aloud. One piece referred to a โtriple layer raincoatโ made of family, friends, and faith. And, even when we think we need a โtech shabbatโ the human connection in these technology-assisted Zoom sessions allow for connection and help in โthis rainy season.โ Another piece began with a scene of mother and daughter watching television in 1963 with the childโs head in the motherโs lap, comforted by her words about life after death. Several writers listed memories of what they were/are protected from by the presence of mother or other. The โraincoatโ can be a hug, a gesture, a look, words. Some of these โhave no expiration dateโ and go on sheltering and restoring. Participants responded to the writing created among us this evening as balm, mantle, or medicine. Narrative Medicineโthatโs what we do.
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Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Please join us for our next session Wednesday August 18th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.
โThe Raincoatโ by Ada Limรณn When the doctor suggested surgery and a brace for all my youngest years, my parents scrambled to take me to massage therapy, deep tissue work, osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine unspooled a bit, I could breathe again, and move more in a body unclouded by pain. My mom would tell me to sing songs to her the whole forty-five minute drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty- five minutes back from physical therapy. Sheโd say, even my voice sounded unfettered by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang, because I thought she liked it. I never asked her what she gave up to drive me, or how her day was before this chore. Today, at her age, I was driving myself home from yet another spine appointment, singing along to some maudlin but solid song on the radio, and I saw a mom take her raincoat off and give it to her young daughter when a storm took over the afternoon. My god, I thought, my whole life Iโve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet. From The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018) by Ada Limรณn. Copyright ยฉ 2018 by Ada Limรณn.
Connections in Narrative Medicine 