{"id":146590,"date":"2025-05-04T20:56:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T18:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=146590"},"modified":"2025-05-04T20:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T18:56:39","slug":"the-thing-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=146590","title":{"rendered":"The Thing Is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

By Ellen Bass<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to love life, to love it even<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when you have no stomach for it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and everything you\u2019ve held dear<\/p>\n\n\n\n

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

your throat filled with the silt of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thickening the air, heavy as water<\/p>\n\n\n\n

more fit for gills than lungs;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when grief weights you down like your own flesh<\/p>\n\n\n\n

only more of it, an obesity of grief,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you think, How can a body withstand this?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then you hold life like a face<\/p>\n\n\n\n

between your palms, a plain face,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

no charming smile, no violet eyes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and you say, yes, I will take you<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will love you, again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ellen Bass to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you\u2019ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[2045],"class_list":["post-146590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-other-stuff","category-quotes","tag-poem"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":104978,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=104978","url_meta":{"origin":146590,"position":0},"title":"Stages of Grief via felibre.","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"14\/06\/2016","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Stages of Grief via felibre.","rel":"","context":"In "all other stuff"","block_context":{"text":"all other stuff","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":81581,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=81581","url_meta":{"origin":146590,"position":1},"title":"Stages of Grief","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"14\/06\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Now you know via felibre.","rel":"","context":"In "all other stuff"","block_context":{"text":"all other stuff","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/65.media.tumblr.com\/edb2aed141369665848a605385b2c91c\/tumblr_o5k2fgCdIy1raxgmco1_500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/65.media.tumblr.com\/edb2aed141369665848a605385b2c91c\/tumblr_o5k2fgCdIy1raxgmco1_500.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/65.media.tumblr.com\/edb2aed141369665848a605385b2c91c\/tumblr_o5k2fgCdIy1raxgmco1_500.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/65.media.tumblr.com\/edb2aed141369665848a605385b2c91c\/tumblr_o5k2fgCdIy1raxgmco1_500.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8924,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=8924","url_meta":{"origin":146590,"position":2},"title":"Consummation of Grief","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"30\/04\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Consummation of Grief from J. Chris Schwartz on Vimeo. A wonderful poem by Charles Bukowski, animated by Chris Schwartz! Enjoy :-)","rel":"","context":"In "videos"","block_context":{"text":"videos","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=193"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":119154,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=119154","url_meta":{"origin":146590,"position":3},"title":"Flow","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"17\/01\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cA mourning girl makes an unexpected friend when a white wolf takes her through a mysterious portal on a journey to confront her grief. A journey about loneliness, grief, friendship and love all in one big flow.\u201d Made by Mathijs Demaeght Flow was originally published on The Curious Brain","rel":"","context":"In "all other stuff"","block_context":{"text":"all other stuff","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":57224,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=57224","url_meta":{"origin":146590,"position":4},"title":"Flow","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"17\/01\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/105749934 \"A mourning girl makes an unexpected friend when a white wolf takes her through a mysterious portal on a journey to confront her grief. A journey about loneliness, grief, friendship and love all in one big flow.\" Made by Mathijs Demaeght","rel":"","context":"In "videos"","block_context":{"text":"videos","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=193"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137199,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=137199","url_meta":{"origin":146590,"position":5},"title":"and we go wash the dishes","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"29\/03\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"via","rel":"","context":"In "all other stuff"","block_context":{"text":"all other stuff","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2021-03-29-at-19.19.07.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2021-03-29-at-19.19.07.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2021-03-29-at-19.19.07.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2021-03-29-at-19.19.07.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146591,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146590\/revisions\/146591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}