Published in "Artist, ART & Story: A Moment in Time, 2017"
Call for an essay on "The best of 2017"
After climbing two levels of steep stairs adjacent to a warren of crumbling brick walls, I am standing at the top of what’s left of a housing block thirty-five minutes from Rome. My reward is the stunning views across ancient Ostia Antica, Rome’s former port city, abandoned after the Tiber river changed course and left to disappear under giant cane grass and wild fennel around the 9th century. It was a tragedy that was the catalyst for this first visit to Rome, but the lessons I have learned are what make it the best of 2017.
Four years ago, when images of huge buried terracotta vessels flashed across the tv screen, my first thought was “How could I not have known about those vessels?” quickly followed by “I need to see them in person!” Having used ceramic vessels as the subject of my prints and paintings for over 20 years, I couldn’t believe I’d never seen an image of Ostia Antica’s vessel courtyard before. So I applied for grants to get to Rome and those mysterious jars of Ostia Antica. And over three years I received a variety of rejections. In February of this year, my beloved husband—an artist, my partner, friend, cheerleader and confidante—suddenly collapsed and died of an embolism. I was forty-five, and my world was changed forever.
The sense of displacement that comes from grief is difficult to articulate. I find myself describing it as being unmoored. Adrift. Anchorless in an uncharted ocean with no shoreline or landmarks, not even stars for reference. Time collapses and becomes an abstract concept: you can’t believe your present, you can’t imagine your future, and the past holds no refuge as it constantly reminds you of what is no longer. During spring my short-term memory vanished and I couldn’t conceive of ever making artwork again. Struggling with grammar I fought to use the “correct” tense when talking about my husband and our lives together. And I felt a stab of rage when someone used the term “widow,” I’d been labeled without my consent.
A girlfriend was visiting four months after my husband’s death and our conversations naturally turned to how life is short and carpe diem, seize the day. Sipping red wine and eating chocolate, I bemoaned that a potential trip to Rome in 2018 with a friend was likely delayed until 2019, or even 2020 due to work conflicts. On the one hand it helped me enormously to have the extra time to save, plan, and budget, but I also knew that anything could happen—two years ago I never imagined that the first funeral I ever planned would be for my perennially healthy husband. My friend teased, “Yeah, it’s a shame you’re only allowed to go to Rome just once in your life”. I laughed in reply and in that moment the limitations that I’d placed on myself and what the future could hold unfolded into a map with a thousand possibilities. Why not seize the day? Almost as if I were meant to go to Rome in autumn of this year, the advice of a complete stranger yielded unbelievably cheap airfare and an airbnb credit went towards a $22 per night room in Rome. My work schedule seemed to magically accommodate the three weeks to research those mysterious jars and to see Roman, Etruscan, Greek and Italian artworks that I’d only ever seen in reproduction.
My trip has been empowering. In planning it quickly, so out of character for me, I worried that I would be judged—seen to be running away or trying to escape my sorrow. It’s impossible to run from grief, though I’m sure plenty of people try. I’ve realized that travel requires the same skills that build resilience: problem solving, trusting yourself, being comfortable with being alone and also being outside your comfort zone. Encountering new people and experiencing new cultures, sights, sounds and tastes teaches you how to get accustomed to the unexpected. What I’ve discovered on my trip is that I am still me, no matter what I’ve been labeled, that I can solve unexpected problems and navigate a foreign city and environment, even without wifi. That I still have an innate curiosity about the world and that there is beauty and joy to be found in small moments.
Although I wish circumstances were different and I have been tested to my foundation, the lessons I’ve learned in this year have been extraordinary. Grief is inevitable in a life gifted with love. People use the expressions to get “over” the loss of a loved one, to get “through” it, to “move on” from the tragedy; there is an emphasis on leaving it behind in the past. But my conclusion is that you don’t get “over”, “through” or “move on” from loss. You absorb it, little by little, it gets less hard, and you get accustomed to it. In what feels like a powerless situation, how you navigate losing someone you love is actually within your reach— you do, in fact, have choices. What you can choose to do is knit yourself back together, find a way to incorporate it into the fabric of your being and acknowledge that the loss will always be part of who you are and will be, but it does not determine the future.
So as I stand and look out over Ostia’s ruins, I imagine the noise and bustle of a once thriving city. I think about the generations of women keeping an eye on children darting through the streets, of men trading in the port’s market, and of countless other wives grieving like me, feeling the heartache of loss. Time collapses again and I feel very small yet connected to the universal rhythms of being human—of love and loss, joy and sorrow, and I am profoundly grateful. The best and most powerful lesson I learned this year is that choosing to navigate life with gratitude can help illuminate a starless night.
Romi Sloboda, 2017
Four years ago, when images of huge buried terracotta vessels flashed across the tv screen, my first thought was “How could I not have known about those vessels?” quickly followed by “I need to see them in person!” Having used ceramic vessels as the subject of my prints and paintings for over 20 years, I couldn’t believe I’d never seen an image of Ostia Antica’s vessel courtyard before. So I applied for grants to get to Rome and those mysterious jars of Ostia Antica. And over three years I received a variety of rejections. In February of this year, my beloved husband—an artist, my partner, friend, cheerleader and confidante—suddenly collapsed and died of an embolism. I was forty-five, and my world was changed forever.
The sense of displacement that comes from grief is difficult to articulate. I find myself describing it as being unmoored. Adrift. Anchorless in an uncharted ocean with no shoreline or landmarks, not even stars for reference. Time collapses and becomes an abstract concept: you can’t believe your present, you can’t imagine your future, and the past holds no refuge as it constantly reminds you of what is no longer. During spring my short-term memory vanished and I couldn’t conceive of ever making artwork again. Struggling with grammar I fought to use the “correct” tense when talking about my husband and our lives together. And I felt a stab of rage when someone used the term “widow,” I’d been labeled without my consent.
A girlfriend was visiting four months after my husband’s death and our conversations naturally turned to how life is short and carpe diem, seize the day. Sipping red wine and eating chocolate, I bemoaned that a potential trip to Rome in 2018 with a friend was likely delayed until 2019, or even 2020 due to work conflicts. On the one hand it helped me enormously to have the extra time to save, plan, and budget, but I also knew that anything could happen—two years ago I never imagined that the first funeral I ever planned would be for my perennially healthy husband. My friend teased, “Yeah, it’s a shame you’re only allowed to go to Rome just once in your life”. I laughed in reply and in that moment the limitations that I’d placed on myself and what the future could hold unfolded into a map with a thousand possibilities. Why not seize the day? Almost as if I were meant to go to Rome in autumn of this year, the advice of a complete stranger yielded unbelievably cheap airfare and an airbnb credit went towards a $22 per night room in Rome. My work schedule seemed to magically accommodate the three weeks to research those mysterious jars and to see Roman, Etruscan, Greek and Italian artworks that I’d only ever seen in reproduction.
My trip has been empowering. In planning it quickly, so out of character for me, I worried that I would be judged—seen to be running away or trying to escape my sorrow. It’s impossible to run from grief, though I’m sure plenty of people try. I’ve realized that travel requires the same skills that build resilience: problem solving, trusting yourself, being comfortable with being alone and also being outside your comfort zone. Encountering new people and experiencing new cultures, sights, sounds and tastes teaches you how to get accustomed to the unexpected. What I’ve discovered on my trip is that I am still me, no matter what I’ve been labeled, that I can solve unexpected problems and navigate a foreign city and environment, even without wifi. That I still have an innate curiosity about the world and that there is beauty and joy to be found in small moments.
Although I wish circumstances were different and I have been tested to my foundation, the lessons I’ve learned in this year have been extraordinary. Grief is inevitable in a life gifted with love. People use the expressions to get “over” the loss of a loved one, to get “through” it, to “move on” from the tragedy; there is an emphasis on leaving it behind in the past. But my conclusion is that you don’t get “over”, “through” or “move on” from loss. You absorb it, little by little, it gets less hard, and you get accustomed to it. In what feels like a powerless situation, how you navigate losing someone you love is actually within your reach— you do, in fact, have choices. What you can choose to do is knit yourself back together, find a way to incorporate it into the fabric of your being and acknowledge that the loss will always be part of who you are and will be, but it does not determine the future.
So as I stand and look out over Ostia’s ruins, I imagine the noise and bustle of a once thriving city. I think about the generations of women keeping an eye on children darting through the streets, of men trading in the port’s market, and of countless other wives grieving like me, feeling the heartache of loss. Time collapses again and I feel very small yet connected to the universal rhythms of being human—of love and loss, joy and sorrow, and I am profoundly grateful. The best and most powerful lesson I learned this year is that choosing to navigate life with gratitude can help illuminate a starless night.
Romi Sloboda, 2017