Clip: Phantasmagoria

Penguin Random House Audio is releasing excerpts of the audiobook of Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief, as read by me in a three-day marathon inside a little black cave-room in Nova Scotia. It was such a gift, and such a deep dive—18 hours of reading aloud, re-living, time-travelling. And feeling very much with you, with us.

This first clip is about like-minded company and why we (in grief or trauma) are strangely, wonderfully ravenous for each others’ stories and specifics. Shared dreams, nightmares, exhales. It’s a funny thing, isn’t it? How we reach for one another, new to loss or twelve years reconciled. I’ve spent years marvelling at the safety of this kind of company, the license and freedom of it. Like at Glow in the Woods, formed one year to the day that Liam and Ben were born. How is it that these kinds of moments, conversations, and spaces both require strength of me while also generating strength in me?

I don’t know. I could theorize, but I’d only be touching on one angle of the kaleidoscope. You might turn it and see something the same, but completely different.