Sorry to Disupt the Peace

I was surprised to find as many parallels as I did with the protagonist, Helen, who is probably one of the least likable characters I’ve encountered. The book starts early in describing Helen as a 32-year old, childless woman living in a big city. My interest was immediately piqued as I find myself similarly situated. Then, the death of her adoptive brother and her subsequent home-going were also especially resonate for me as an acquaintance of mine committed suicide a few months ago and 7 years ago my grandmother back in Michigan passed away.

I remember the body experience of hearing news of both of those losses. My grandmother died a few days after my 25^th birthday. I’d spoken to my mom earlier in the morning and decided to take a nap before preparing for my celebrations that evening. I laid down and heard my phone ring next to me – glanced at the name and wondered why my mom was calling me again. Normally I would just silence it and go back to sleep but I answered and heard her sobbing on the other end – I jumped up and asked her what was wrong. My stomach dropped and I felt my body collapse onto the floor. I felt broken open in so many ways.

What struck me as curious with Helen’s reaction is how she focuses in on her somatic experience almost entirely. The boxes she sees in the other room, the smell of the new couch, the sound of the voice on the other end of the phone. I think about how grief hits us differently, how reactions aren’t predicable or “proper.” And still, the simultaneous focus on sense while centering herself in the relation to the world creates a distance between her processing information about her world and her actually experiencing her feelings. Even in the dream on the plane she discusses the thick gloves her and her counterpart were wearing, the powder on the flight attendant, stretching her legs out completely. Helen sees only the trees in her world, because the forest is too much to bear.

I was also transported back to the morning I heard that someone I knew had died by suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. I searched the internet for any mention of her death specifically and found myself reading through a moment by moment account of what happens to the body upon impact. I felt nauseous thinking about the last moments in her body, gasping for air but only finding water, bones broken and organs pierced. I’m almost certain she regretted it the moment she took a step into the air. I saw her face in those last moments, desperate, alone. It was so heartbreaking to think that she may have wanted to turn back but could not. I wonder if Helen’s adopted brother felt the same – though, through Helen’s eyes he made the right choice for himself.

One final theme I’ll mention is the cultural chasm between Helen and her parents. I identify with this having left Michigan almost a decade ago and wherein relating to those who stayed has become more and more difficult as years have passed. That, combined with her Korean origins (though adopted) juxtaposed with that of her white Midwestern parents (punctuated by the apparition of the balding European man) creates a rich layer of cultural difference. In Helen’s case, however, who she is and how she is are two different things. She is their daughter, who they raised from infancy, yet they don’t understand her and don’t actually seem to like her – from her perspective. She is like the rainstorm to them like the one during her arrival, messy, inconvenient. “Can’t you see the floor is soaking wet?” she asks of them, almost as if to say “Why didn’t you see this coming?” in reference to her brother. Because Helen is so preoccupied with the trees she may have seen foreshadowing of her brother’s suicide in a way that her parents did not.