a note on themes & engaging with this text

During the summer of 2023, I started working with an assemblage of writing and other forms associated with grief and the relationship between loss and survival. Much of this included transcribing of and sorting through texts that already existed, bringing together pieces that once seemed separate, and inviting in others whose approaches to grieving have helped me learn my own. Since We the Lake started to emerge, loss and its partners seem only to have multiplied — more premature death in the communities I am part of, the ongoing horror of multiple genocides, increasing instances of climate disaster and ecosystem loss, acute and chronic suffering in cities and rural spaces alike — and with this a growing sense that thinking and feeling around grief might be one bolstering resource for endurance through time. 

We the Lake continues to take shape, and for now has arranged itself into three primary sections. The Lake is a growing series of records gathered from an open call for grief. Individual contributions are formed together each month to create a collage of endurance in time. Please add your experience to the lake as many times as you like. Meet Me at the Center of the Bridge carries a series of collaborations and conversations initiated as part of this project. Though these exchanges often originate from spaces of loss, their work is finding what comes after, what evolution can be undergone through deep engagement with grief. Updates and additions will be made here frequently. The squares below the bridge comprise a series of experimental conversations on grief, loss, healing, and death that occurred in 2020 & 2021 as part of Sema.

We the Lake is offered with the hope of nurturing openness, connection, and relief inside of questions that do not have answers. I hope you might find some reflection or comfort or renewal here, and space to share your own understanding. Please take care when engaging with these texts, keeping in mind the themes they explore. Thank you for being here.