Grief and Love

En septembre dernier Nick Cave lançait sur la toile le site https://www.theredhandfiles.com/. Un lieu d'échange où il répond, avec l'attention particulière et appliquée qu'on lui connait, aux nombreuses questions de ses fans. En plus d'avoir cette possibilité d'interagir directement avec l'artiste, ce site garde cette tonalité étrange et sombre, signature noire de Nick Cave, flirtant avec les monstres et âmes en peines. Je te recommande plus que chaleureusement d'aller y faire un tour, auditeur averti...

Et il y a quelques jours, il reçut cette poignante question de Cynthia, visiblement en deuil et le cœur lourd, qu'on imagine sollicitant davantage le réconfort d'une idole que recherchant une simple réponse à un vulgaire FAQ:

I have experienced the death of my father, my sister, and my first
love in the past few years and feel that I have some communication with them, mostly through dreams. They are helping me. Are you and Susie feeling that your son Arthur is with you and communicating in some way?

Voici sa réponse:

Dear Cynthia,

This is a very beautiful question and I am grateful that you have
asked it. It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence. It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe. Within that whirling gyre all manner of madnesses exist; ghosts and spirits and dream visitations, and everything else that we, in our anguish, will into existence. These are precious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be. They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness.

I feel the presence of my son, all around, but he may not be there. I hear him talk to me, parent me, guide me, though he may not be there. He visits Susie in her sleep regularly, speaks to her, comforts her, but he may not be there. Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake. These spirits are ideas, essentially. They are our stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity. Like ideas, these spirits speak of possibility. Follow your ideas, because on the other side of the idea is change and growth and redemption. Create your spirits. Call to them. Will them alive. Speak to them. It is their impossible and ghostly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jettisoned; better now and unimaginably changed.

With love, Nick.

Cette lettre est bouleversante. Et pour quiconque je crois, qui expérimenta malheureusement le deuil lira cette critique, celle-ci résonnera avec avec une familiarité et une profondeur inespérées.

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J'en profite pour citer DogtorWoof, membre de ce site, qui écrivit en conclusion de sa critique sur The Leftovers ceci, que je trouve approprié et en parfaite adéquation avec le baume rédigé de Nick Cave.

Souvent, la souffrance se blottit contre ceux qui restent, pour que ceux qui partent puissent enfin dormir.