Books & Books & Grief
I’m packing up my home to relocate and putting all my books in storage.*
Books are my anchor.
They’ve kept me grounded throughout my life, and especially through this last year or so.
I have books from my childhood - I kept my favourites: The Worst Witch, The Snow Spider, and my mum’s illustrated copy of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe.
I kept books from school - we read Wuthering Heights for our exams and it was world-changing for me, along with a poem called ‘Stanzas’ ascribed to Emily Brönte. I met the brilliant fantasy-feminist writing of Angela Carter at college while studying for my A Levels.
University books include various editions that opened my mind & expanded my horizons from undergrad to doctorate… From Chaucer to Blake to Keats to Dickens to Dickinson to Ginsberg to Waldman to Cha.
Many of my most recent books are obscure purchases from incredible and important new writers being published by small presses - including Pamenar Press, Knives Forks & Spoons, Hesterglock, Datableed, Veer & more…
Writers working at the edges of what’s possible with language, with literature, with form and physicality, embodiment and rhythm.
Writing at the threshold of what’s possible now as we co-create in real-time together.
This is the foundation of my writing practice and all the work I do with words. And it started with that love of books and pure joy of reading as a child. I remember reading an entire book in one sitting while I was waiting for my Dad to pick me up. It was the first time I’d ever achieved that!
My Grandad Sam used to tell me stories and write poetry - he was the first storyteller I ever knew, and the stories would evolve every time he told them - until I asked him to write them down so I could keep them too. I didn’t know that they were already living in my heart, even then.
He now has the word ‘POET’ on his gravestone after his name - an audacious claiming of his calling that invites me to keep stepping into my truth.
As well as at Grandad Sam’s, I’ve read poetry by the graveside of John Keats in Rome and Allen Ginsberg in Colorado. Nearby Keats is his contemporary Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Ginsberg’s friend Gregory Corso.
All this to say - books mean a lot to me. A lot.
And I feel them.
Their presence grounds me.
Even if I’m not reading the words every five minutes - (I usually have a number of books on the go at any given time, but I can’t be reading them all at once!) - I feel them. Their energetic presence permeates my home, my body and my being.
I sleep with books in the bed next to me or under my pillow to absorb their meaning.
I have to limit how many books I have in the bedroom so as not to overcrowd my capacity!
It’s that tangible for me.
It’s that real.
My books ground me into my lived experience of reality - their energy is ever-present in my field. Physically. As well as emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.
And so - when I make the decision to pack them all up and put them into storage, it’s not a decision I’ve taken lightly. It’s like letting go of my children. My friends. My family. Everything and everyone I’ve ever known and loved.
As I bring them off the shelves to box them, I meet with the grief of this release.
It’s heavy and overwhelming and I feel the tears I need to cry as they well up behind my eyes.
I know that I can go no further until I’ve allowed myself to feel and let this energy move through me. So I stop and give myself time - and permission - to cry. To sob and wail and howl until I’m done.
Then, with the books now boxed and packed and stored - I feel a lightness emerge.
It’s time for me to move on from the frequencies I’ve been anchored into and step into the positive vibrational field of new possibilities.
