The Joy Menu

Home
Archive
About
His letters pull me from the sea like a line from a fishing pole: there’s a wrenching, a pulling back, a removal from the comfortable, from home, from an unthinking way of just being.
But the writer is also him, a him he did know, later; when you were 17, heading into the world, leaving for college, he had this writer inside of him. It just never occurred to you.
1
Introducing The Joy Menu, a narrative newsletter exploring death, loss, grief, art, and creativity.
But it also eats away at a more core belief around who I am, and how this project negates or reaffirms my identity: if I truly were a writer, then I would drop everything and follow his lead...

Most popular

3
1
2
1
See all popular
NewCommunity
What matters is, I tucked them away; aware of their power but not of what they were. Honored, confused, horrified, excited.
#71. And in writing about this grief – grief for him, and grief for myself as an artist – I renovated my relationship to art.
And at every juncture, each time I saw a doctor or a specialist or a nurse or a phlebotomist, they’d ask “And the pain?”
1
“It is forgetfulness that is the fundamental problem, not memory.” — Patrick Modiano
2
In a way, while the sale was open, while the cello remained unsold, part of my father remained alive. Far from view, over the crest of the horizon, but…
1
“Hey boychik,” the refined voice on the other side of the world says. “How’s school? How’s soccer? How’s the cello?”
1
Perhaps there was comfort in the constriction, a perverse safety in the pressure. Perhaps the door served as a weighted blanket – protection from…
1
That was the drug, I think. That liminality, that escape, that floating, etherial disconnection — or re-connection. I wonder: how many lives did he live…
1
See all

Most popular

3
1
2
1
See all popular

The Joy Menu

writing grief, grieving writing; or, a life in 100 emails.

The Joy Menu

AboutArchiveSitemap
© 2023 Joey Rubin
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing