KATE PARFET
In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion writes: “People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness."When I started reading this book I was exploring what was lost. I took to navigating that amorphous, gravity-less place. In many ways my empty spaces became destinations. There was memory, the sense of loss, the attempt to recapture what couldn’t be and ultimately understanding that being caught between two destinations can be a destination onto itself. Joan helped me realize our need as humans to rationalize when a loved one leaves us unexpectedly. Utimately ownership, comparison and blame don’t hold any real value. Empathy and compassion do.
