Peas of the Pod 2: Losing As Art

This is the second of the original columns which inspired the creation of our DivorcingDaze podcast. Happy Valentines Day!


A couple of months after my husband left, my mother emailed me a poem called “One Art.â€?   I think her motivation was to help ease my pain.  My English teacher mother often offers her maternal comfort and advice through the works of famous, dead, white, male authors like Shakespeare and Chaucer. Well, this day’s message came from a dead white woman poet, Elizabeth Bishop. 

I think Bishop’s point in her poem “One Artâ€? is that losing is a craft – an art.  She writes,  “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.â€?  And she writes, “Loss is no disaster.â€?   For Pete’s sake, people lose things all the time, teaches Ms. Bishop: keys, an hour, a watch, a house, a city, a continent, a loved one.  People lose all the time, so, you know, get over it.  No more blubbering.  Move on.

What I have found in this past year of total loss is that losing breeds more losing.  And, quite frankly, it is a disaster, Ms. Bishop. 

Let’s see….upon discovery of X’s affair I spent the first two months losing lots of sleep.  Lots.  I’m still trying to catch up.  In a matter of two weeks, I think I lost 12 pounds. I loss all body fat. Loss of sleep provides a perfect breeding ground for losing many more a material thing. One wallet, one watch, one set of car keys, one cell phone, one pair of diamond earrings and one diamond and sapphire wedding ring that I still wore on my middle finger.  That’s a lot to lose in 10 months. And like Madonna, I have discovered, I too, am a material girl.  And it hurts.  Lots.

I lost my husband, my marriage, frankly, life, as I knew it.  I lost my in-laws, my sister in law, two nieces I adored.  Half my books and cds, that really good griddle. My self-esteem, my dignity, my youthful look, an innocence. Every other weekend with my two precious daughters.  Every other Thanksgiving, every other Christmas. My mind at times.   My boggle partner, my best friend (scratch that one), my lover, my tennis partner, my story teller, my dish washer, my financial provider, my medical insurance, my security, my boxing partner. Pictures that hung on the wall.  My coffee maker, who always woke before I did.  A smell, a confidence, a vow.

I lost a stressful job because I couldn’t handle “ALL THAT STRESS.â€?  I lost my very helpful neighbors who moved to Florida. I even lost my divorce lawyer who became a judge.  That one was really tough.

So Ms. Bishop, for me, losing, no matter how much you do it, IS hard to master.  I’m still not used to it.  And here’s a secret I’ll share:  I hope I never get used to it. Because that would mean, I would really be left with nothing.


Losing doesn’t get easier the more you do it.  It isn’t something that improves the soul.  It most certainly darkens it.  Writers and poets, dead and alive, hear me roar….Losing is Disastrous. 

But life can go on.