18 Apr Grief is for People
Sloane Crosley is a metropolitan New York wordsmith, author of ‘Grief is for People’. It is an exploration of the ways different forms of loss and absence take hold in her life. It begins with a jewellery cabinet.
She uses original metaphors, relishing in language.
“But the trauma humps my leg like a dog. I pick at memory scabs, recalling the sound of the amber amulet sputtering along its chain.”
Familiar with the literary sphere, she echoes and sometimes quotes from Joan Didion’s writing.
Crosley paints a detailed portrait of a close friendship. She describes the holes left behind in its absence; the way another’s death can take our history along with it.
I enjoyed its portrayal of the impacts of death and loss that happen in myriad ways in ordinary lives. It took me into an unfamiliar city, and the professional and sometimes funny world of agents, publicists and writers. This setting is itself in transition as she writes through pandemic, and other gathering forces – like social media and AI.
It is not a dramatic memoir of traumatic partner or child loss. It is, however, valuable to describe the loss of a close friend. This will inevitably happen to us all over and over again as we age.
‘Grief is for People’ is not a how to guide for facing loss, but it may ring a chord if you are melancholy or haunted by what has gone. Crossley examines the interplay between past and present.“I have read the grief literature and the grief philosophy and, God help me, listened to the grief podcasts, and the most practical thing I’ve learned is the power of the present tense. The past is quicksand and the future is unknowable, but in the present, you get to float. Nothing is missing, nothing is hypothetical.”
Grief Tending workshops are for people processing loss, absence and change and not just bereavement. You can find events online and in London here.
Sarah Pletts is a Grief Tender and Artist who offers workshops in London and online, sharing rituals where grief on all themes is welcome. For more information about Grief Tending events see here.
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