illumination

Sufjan's new album, Carrie & Lowell, is sad. And I love it. It reeks of emotion- the honest, soul-searching kind that comes barreling through you when you've been destroyed, unexpectedly, by loss. For Sufjan, loss came in fits and starts from the time his mother left when he was one. She suffered from schizophrenia and addiction. He had hardly any relationship with her. And then, in 2012, she died.

Alice is nearly one. The idea of suffering to the extent of needing to abandon her is horrifying. It is intensely sad too, because at 12 months along, you've just truly formed a parent-child friendship. Until recently, I loved Alice, but she wasn't capable of expressing distinct affection in return. But now? She hugs, kisses, teases, and gets mad. It is awesome. And it is heartbreaking to think that in this time, when all the personality switches are beginning to flip on, a mother would need to escape.

So, it seems to me, that Sufjan must have spent his life up to 2012 intermittently racked with questions of his abandonment, mourning for his relationship with Carrie and the security it would have provided. When she died, the potential of reconciliation and relationship died too. There was no longer hope for a cleaned slate or a maternal bond or the kissing, teasing, and madness of a mother-child relationship.

Sufjan gurgled through the drowning depression that his mother's death instigated. He felt possessed by her. He loved her deeply and tragically. And he is a musician, so he made music about it.

On Sunday night Sufjan's voice sounded older and weaker than it has at his more rambunctious concerts. On the Illinois tour Sufjan wore a cheerleading outfit and danced with pom-poms. For Age of Adz he wore massive wings and neon stripes. But Carrie & Lowell is raw and hard and Sufjan's voice matched the themes as it cracked through every transition into falsetto. He missed beats and dropped lines. And, just like the album, I loved it. I love Sufjan Stevens and all his quirky, honest artistry. I love him even more now that he has put lyrics and music to these life experiences.

Maybe it is because I so recently waded through depression? Or maybe I have simply grown tired of defaulting to criticism rather than kindness? Thankfully though Carrie & Lowell doesn't beg me to restrain judgement for the sake of Sufjan's feelings- it is solidly, poignantly, Sufjan's best album to date.

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The Moral Bucket List made me cry in my cubicle today. In it, David Brooks discusses interactions with good people, people who he describes as those who "radiate an inner light." He writes about resume virtues versus eulogy virtues and what makes a deeply good person: profound honesty and confrontation with their weaknesses, deeply rooted beliefs, relationships, and a sense of calling, limitless gratitude. I nodded my head, over and over again, as I read and re-read paragraphs. And this part? This is what had me wiping my eyes:

Dorothy Day led a disorganized life when she was young: drinking, carousing, a suicide attempt or two, following her desires, unable to find direction. But the birth of her daughter changed her. She wrote of that birth, “If I had written the greatest book, composed the greatest symphony, painted the most beautiful painting or carved the most exquisite figure I could not have felt the more exalted creator than I did when they placed my child in my arms.”

That kind of love decenters the self. It reminds you that your true riches are in another. Most of all, this love electrifies. It puts you in a state of need and makes it delightful to serve what you love. Day’s love for her daughter spilled outward and upward. As she wrote, “No human creature could receive or contain so vast a flood of love and joy as I often felt after the birth of my child. With this came the need to worship, to adore.”

She made unshakable commitments in all directions. She became a Catholic, started a radical newspaper, opened settlement houses for the poor and lived among the poor, embracing shared poverty as a way to build community, to not only do good, but be good. This gift of love overcame, sometimes, the natural self-centeredness all of us feel.

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My own struggle with depression after Alice's birth was somehow simultaneously mixed with the exact feelings Dorothy Day describes. I recall, late one night, very early in Alice's life, standing and rocking her in our bedroom. I looked at Jake through eye-fulls of tears and blurted, "this is what it is all about." It was one of those Royal Tenenbaums moments:

ROYAL: I just wanna say the last six days have been the best six days of probably my whole life.
NARRATOR: Immediately after making this statement, Royal realized that it was true.

The upending of motherhood- the hormones, lack of sleep, physical injuries from birth, disorienting disconnection with one's own body- is slap-dashed with a new-found deep understanding of love and creation. Like Dorothy, I felt utterly decentered and now, without the haze of postpartum, I also frequently feel electrified and unshakable, clear and focused. Simpler.

As I listen to Carrie & Lowell I feel that I am keeping company with someone who feels a likewise desire for clarity of purpose and confrontation of weaknesses. In this interview Sufjan says the album is an attempt "to pursue a sense of peace and serenity in spite of suffering." Ah! As he sings, I nod and cry. He brings up his niece and I think of Alice:

My brother had a daughter / The beauty that she brings, illumination