Good Life Project - Life & Creation After Loss | Kate Inglis

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

Kate Inglis (http://www.kateinglis.com/) writes children’s fiction, including award-nominated novels and picture books. Kate's writing through the premature birth of her twins, the subsequent loss o...f one, and life beyond eventually led to her internationally recognized book, Notes for the Everlost (https://amzn.to/2KVNKzp). In today’s expansive conversion, we dive into the peak moments, both highs and lows, from profound loss to revelation, creation, community and celebration, the stories that have shaped her path, the unexpected universality of her experience, her creative lens, voice and commitment to a life of creativity and service.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessmentâ„¢ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 My guest today, Kate Inglis, is a photographer and author living in Nova Scotia, which is somewhere I've never been but would love to eventually go. She writes children's fiction, including award-nominated novels and picture books. And Kate's writing through the premature birth of her twins and then the subsequent loss of one and then life beyond eventually led her to create her internationally recognized book, Notes for the Everlost. In 2008, she then founded Glow in the Woods, which is an online community for bereaved parents. And then in 2012, she gave a TEDx talk called Parallelism, which really explored the similarities between the often solitary journeys
Starting point is 00:00:45 of creative work and healing from grief. And in today's conversation, we dive into the peak moments along her journey, both highs and lows, from profound loss to revelation and creation, community and celebration, and all the stories that have shaped her path and the unexpected universality of her experience and her creative lens and voice and commitment to a life of creativity and of service. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,
Starting point is 00:01:37 whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.
Starting point is 00:02:02 On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference of pirates and rum runners and beaches and craggy salt. And the air is just rich with oceans burp all the time. I like the way you described that. And when you say pirates, you literally mean pirates. I mean, that was the place. Yeah, like, you know, under the sidewalk of the library in Halifax, there are mutineers buried, there are skeletons buried all over the city of pirates. And then, of course, the most recent sort of generation of pirates were, you know, Al Capone used to kind of frequent the bay that I live on.
Starting point is 00:02:52 Yeah. So, of course, rum running during the Prohibition era was sort of the most recent pirates were those guys. So what's it like growing up in a place like that? Well, I suppose when you grow up in that place, it feels ordinary. And then you come to New York City and you are walking around with your head on a swivel and people go, Nova Scotia, what? And they think that I'm exotic. And I think, well, I'm in New York. How can you think that Lunenburg County is fascinating? But I think that the salt
Starting point is 00:03:25 does kind of seep into you in a way that is instructional in terms of it's one of those kind of elements. It's one of those foundational elements that we're made up of that we need. You need a face full of spray from the ocean every now and then for health. And I think when you're far from it, I don't know, it's just one of those things that keeps you close to nature. And I think it's just something that's really good for health. So when you stray too far from the water for too long, do you feel it? Well, no, because I'm always fascinated and totally entranced with wherever I am. But then it's when I go back and I get off the plane and even just at the airport, you kind of just, oh, oh yeah, I'm home. And I need that
Starting point is 00:04:14 because the air really is just wet and salty all the time. Yeah. That's amazing. I was, as I've read some of the way that you've described where you grew up, I mean, I grew up in a very different place. I grew up in a small suburb of New York City that was actually East Egg from the Great Gatsby. It was my town. It's like the real town it was based on. It's a small egg-shaped peninsula on Long Island. But the end of my town, it was a water town, and the end of my block was a beach. So I was a water kid.
Starting point is 00:04:42 I grew up on the water all the time. Yeah. And there is something about it, so it's in me. If I go too far away from it for too long, I just, I don't have to be in it. I just have to be around it. And I've learned that about myself. Yeah, definitely. And I find for me, there's also an urban rural divide as well that if I'm surrounded by too much concrete for too long, I start getting really janky. You know, I start just feeling really claustrophobic. I think I need grass under my feet. I need a field where there's nothing or no one near me.
Starting point is 00:05:20 So that does happen. I hear that. So pretty young, it sounds like, growing up where you grew up, you started to explore writing. Yeah. And it sounds like is a bit like, you know, I mean, everybody has those wonderful sort of expansive ideas. I wanted to be a fireman. Yeah. For a hot minute. Yeah. I wanted to be a professional roller skater or an author. Those are my two.
Starting point is 00:05:56 So the first one didn't work out. But I didn't know if I had any stories to tell. I knew that that's what I wanted to do. And my parents actually used to use writing as sort of punitive, as an avenue for teaching me. Because I would do something wrong and they would get frustrated and they would say, okay, go write a story about this. Go write a story about a little girl who called the fire department when the house wasn't burning down just to see what would happen and so I did and so it really um I mean that sounds terrible but but it was it was just it's always been sort of um a really essential part of life and something that my parents when I said I was six and I wanted to be an author, they said, well, then get going. And they gave me empty books and staples and pencils. And they really kind of expected a lot of me from having made that declaration. And they still do.
Starting point is 00:06:54 Okay. So now I can't let what you just said go. So very early age, doing random things like calling the fire department just to see what would happen. It kind of tells me a little bit about what kind of a kid you are also. Maybe. Yeah, Beast Beckled and Pigtails. You know, I mean, every kid has those curiosities, those itches that they just have to scratch. That's all I can say about that. The record has all been sealed.
Starting point is 00:07:26 You don't have much of an effect on the world when you're eight years old. And to pick up the phone and look over your shoulder and whisper something into the phone, and then all of a sudden you can hear the sirens coming. It's like, oh, look what I made happen. But it also brings to mind for me, I grew up in a time where I was out the door after school and we were just in the neighborhood, sometimes doing good things, sometimes doing not so good things and running all over the place and then come back for, you know, like homework and dinner and then go out until the sun went down. I feel like the world isn't like that anymore, at least in New York, which makes me curious where you live in a fairly isolated place in a small area. Is it more like that sort of like where you are not really anymore? I grew up in Halifax. So I did grow up in a city. Yeah, I grew up in exactly the same situation that you described, you know, that I was on my bike until everyone was, you know,
Starting point is 00:08:24 everyone's mom or dad was out at the front door, bellowing out that I was on my bike until everyone was, you know, everyone's mom or dad was out at the front door bellowing out that it was time for supper and we would all kind of scatter. But now, gosh, it's, I mean, where I am now is really quiet. It's exceedingly quiet. And our sort of social circle and our kids' social circle is kind of spread out over a few little outports and villages. So it is really different than when I was growing up. And what is our sense of freedom when you're already really quite dispersed? It's really different. And it's something to kind of navigate as we go for all of us. Yeah, I know. I'm constantly trying to figure it out myself. And as a parent, too, it's sort of like,
Starting point is 00:09:07 okay, so where is the, like how much you're on the side of safety versus freedom and exploration. And I know it's sort of a raging debate these days. Definitely. Jumping back into your story. So now that we've sort of like talked about the side of things we can talk
Starting point is 00:09:27 about. So you start to discover that writing is a part of you at an early age and your parents encourage it, which is pretty awesome. When does it start to sort of become more of this is, it's kind of something I'm doing on the side. I'm like, oh, this could be something more for you. Yeah. Well, I mean, I got a degree in public relations. Okay. What was that about? Well, that was sort of communications. Right.
Starting point is 00:09:50 I knew that if I was ever, you know, whatever my career might be, that I would want to do something that I could write all the time, but hopefully make some money. And it hadn't even occurred to me at that point that I might write books. But the first novel that I wrote was actually something that I wrote when my nine-month-old was strapped to me and I was going for a walk with someone else's six-year-old. And we were in the woods and his hands were wet and his feet were cold and his belly was empty and he was kind of whining. And I started telling him a story about pirates in the woods.
Starting point is 00:10:29 And so that became my first novel, only because I went home and I thought, that was kind of fun. I should just jot that down so I don't forget it. And I did. And it was really easy. It just kind of rattled off. But I think if I had opened up a Word doc with that horrible empty page and the blanking cursor. I know that page. Yeah, I know it now. But I didn't that first time, you know, because I wasn't sort of setting out to write a novel. I was just scribbling down something kind
Starting point is 00:10:57 of fun that I had told on a walk. So writing was always something that had been my career, but in the corporate sense. And then it became creative. It became about children's literature and writing sort of novels and picture books. But then, of course, the explosion in life happens, my first. And then writing became something that was more like a life raft. Yeah. So share what happened. Yeah. So my first pregnancy was ordinary and lovely, and my first baby was ordinary and lovely.
Starting point is 00:11:35 And my second pregnancy was a complete and utter disaster. So I was pregnant with identical twin boys, and they were born at 28 weeks by crash C-section, which is exactly as it sounds. You're sort of sprinted down the hallway on a gurney, and then the room explodes, and then babies emerge from it in various states. And in my case, Liam and Ben were both about two pounds. Ben was two pounds on the nose. And we were in the NICU for two months. And Liam died after six weeks. Ben is fine. He's 12, almost. And I feel like the luckiest, unlucky person. And the unluckiestiest lucky person, I'm not sure which.
Starting point is 00:12:27 But, you know, that was the first thing in my life that ever really felt like a trial. You know, and of course, you don't realize that your life has never really been a trial until the first true trial hits you. Because I had been sort of fussing over all of the vanities and regular things that we fuss about. But my life to that point had been loving and surrounded by, you know, delicious food and lovely people who cared for me. And, you know, nothing fancy, but all of the good things. And the only people in my life that had ever died had been old and happy. And that is always sad, but it felt universally sort of cosmically acceptable.
Starting point is 00:13:14 And so this was the first thing in my life that ever happened, being Liam's mother, that was cosmically unacceptable. That was something I couldn't reconcile. And also, his body was the first dead body I had ever seen. The body of a six-week-old premature baby that had had brain surgery and heart surgery. And what a mess, what a poor, sweet mess he was. But what an illumination, though, you know, and I, I've never been the same since then, but not in the ways you might think, you know. It's, the joy is bigger and brighter because of him, and the sadness is more mythical and more important because of him.
Starting point is 00:14:09 And so ever since then, just the riddle of being alive and being human and being the only sentient animals, you know, having that curse of knowing that we're going to die and that we're going to love and then lose that love one way or another. What a lonely thing to grapple with, you know, that we're the only animals who really kind of get that beyond instinct. And I've been thinking about that ever since. And it's something that I'll always think about. And you, you also, I mean, you're, I don't know if you did this in real time, but I know you were writing during basically every day through, it looks like through the entire experience where you, cause I read the updates, you know, like with each day as you progressed through
Starting point is 00:14:59 like these first six weeks and eight weeks. And is that something that you were actually sharing publicly in real time during that whole thing? It was, yeah. I had started writing publicly just because that's what people were doing at the time. And it was kind of fun to be able to kind of share the sort of parenthood journey. Yeah, this was 2007, right?
Starting point is 00:15:24 Yeah, yeah. So it was also like the very early days of blogging. It was. A lot of people were just starting to do that on a regular basis. Exactly. And it was something that was never for me a primary thing. But, of course, you know, I remember it was the, I guess it would have been the day after the surgery. And I just shot up in
Starting point is 00:15:47 bed in the middle of the night and I almost knocked over my IV. And I remember kind of, it was completely, it probably wasn't pitch black. It was a hospital, but to me, you know, I was just so muddled with morphine and God knows what else. And I was feeling around for a pad of paper and a pencil and I started writing. I couldn't see, but I started writing because it was this frantic, it wasn't anything artful, but it was just this frantic bubbling over of trying to, and I think it was just my instinct that whatever happens, it's going to be really brutal. Um, cause both babies were alive at that point, but they were alive in a way that was really terrifying. And that's not the way you're supposed to feel when you look at your
Starting point is 00:16:35 babies, you're not supposed to kind of recoil, but that, that circle of parents who have seen a premature child, it is horrifying. Because that being is almost alien-like. They don't look like a baby. They look like a fetus because they are a fetus. And so, you know, it's starting to feel very graphic at this point. But, you know, I thought whether they survived. I didn't know if either of them would survive. I had no idea what lay ahead, but I thought this is the first really monumental thing that's ever happened to me. And if I'm going to be joyful ever again, then I need to, I need to be directing the story. I need to be finding the shape of whatever is going to happen. And it wasn't anything conscious. I just, I can only look back on it now and think that was the compulsion.
Starting point is 00:17:30 I can't just let it all unfold because I need to be able to allow this dragon to live inside me without burning me up. And somehow writing felt like dragon taming in a way. So, I mean, it seems like it was almost this blend of both an outlet for something that you're feeling and at the same time, something that maybe gave you some remote semblance of control. Like there's this one thing that I can, I can write, like, I can get this on the page the way that I need to get it out of me. Yeah. Like I've never been so out of control in my life, you know, to have a two pound baby, have open heart surgery and to have to sign those papers and watch them take the incubator away. No control, no control there whatsoever, but the narrative is mine to control. And whether it is a two-pound baby
Starting point is 00:18:33 trying to recover from a drug addiction or a divorce or some other kind of really ground, earth-shaking loss or trauma, Whether it's artful or not, whether it's writing or not, we can all shape that narrative. That is the thing that you can control. And it doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't even have to be optimistic. I kind of love pessimism. There's something really powerful in allowing those feelings to boil. That's where our heat comes from, and that's a really important heat. And so I think that that's really important in whatever way is your way. For me, it happened to be writing.
Starting point is 00:19:23 It doesn't have to be tidy. It doesn't have to be tidy. It doesn't have to be reconciled. But to let that lack of reconciliation have a place and to honor that confusion and to honor that mess in some way, I think, is the way back to health. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, that you describe it as this, let the reconciliation sort of have its own place and let it happen. But it's, I mean, is it reconciliation at the time or is it simply just like there's something, if I keep whatever this is that I'm feeling inside, it's going to absolutely destroy me.
Starting point is 00:20:06 And I don't know what it's going to look like. I don't know if I will ever reconcile. I don't know if I'll ever process it. I just know it can't stay where it is right now. No. Yeah, that was the instinct, I think. I needed to be able to look at the horror, the memory of it, and that existing moment. I needed to be able to look at them and not just
Starting point is 00:20:27 see their context. I needed to try to dig deeper than that and see there are very small moments of peace and beauty and intention and love. And sometimes in our lives lives it's hard to surface those things it is a labor almost a bit like birth just as messy just as painful but really really worthwhile to to understand that even in the middle of the worst kind of mess, when we feel most ashamed, when we feel most abandoned and most unlucky, that even inside of that moment, there is so much beauty all around. And it's okay if you don't see it. There's even beauty in your own rage. You know what I mean? This is not some kind of a call to positive thinking.
Starting point is 00:21:26 I think that's absolute bunk. I like being cranky. It's the salt air. That's right. Exactly. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there.
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Starting point is 00:22:41 Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what the difference between me and you you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot flight risk what was the compulsion to go one step further and write not just what you were moving through for your own purpose, but also to share it? Well, you know, I was writing through the actual sort of ordeal, through that chapter of my life. But of course it doesn't end. You bring one child home from the hospital who's premature
Starting point is 00:23:29 that's being weighed by the gram every week back in the hospital. It was two years after and three years after that that labor continues while also taking care of an infant. And I think by sharing it, I felt less alone. I found it easier to find other people that had to carry the same trauma that I had to carry. And they can feel hard to find sometimes, you know, when you, when something like that happens to you and you're out moving in the world, this world in particular rejects the very notion of a dead baby. And this world rejects all kinds of uncomfortable things, whatever it is that sort of a little piece
Starting point is 00:24:22 of horror is for you or for whoever's listening. There's a whole host of things that the world won't look at you square in the face. It might be cancer. It might be any number of things. But especially the rare things, which thankfully, you know, infant loss is rare. Thank goodness. But what that means is when you're walking through the world, having to carry that, having to be that kind of bereaved, nobody will look you in the face.
Starting point is 00:24:58 They pull back from you almost instinctually. And it does make you feel a bit like Medusa. It makes you feel like people, you can see it unfolding, that people come forward to you, they see you, you can see it on their face that, oh God, she's not pregnant anymore, I heard what happened. And they kind of, they start looking at their shoes. And that is something that is so profoundly isolating. And then you sort of layer that in on top of how the world wants grief to be tidy. And the world wants grief to suit it rather than the other way around. And so, you know, you've got to think positive and you don't want to make people uncomfortable. And now don't go turning into one of those angry people. You know, don't talk about it too much and don't this and don't that and you should be grateful. And there's nothing more enraging than having people say those things to you when you are absolutely shooting off sparks like a bad electrical wire.
Starting point is 00:26:06 And you can't help it and you're just angry and you just hate the world for this, for what you've seen, for what you've had to witness. And the most rich moments of healing for me came from people who would see me coming and would stride right up to me and take me by the shoulders and look right at me and say, oh my God, what happened? That is the shittiest thing I've ever heard. You know, those people who kind of came up to me with passion and vigor and a really sort of a real outrage for me that that's not supposed to happen. How on earth are you doing? And they look at you and they keep looking at you. And I remember thinking, yeah, you know, that sucked. Like to put it mildly, that was awful. And then the person looks at you and says, yeah, that was awful. I can't even believe it. Like, I don't even know what to say. It's not that they came up to me and said something profound or that they knew what to say. It's that they came up to me with injustice in
Starting point is 00:27:06 their hearts. And something in me was just starving for that. And when that would happen to me, I could breathe. And I would say, well, thank you. Thank you for seeing my awfulness, it means a lot. And then I would walk away feeling better, you know? And that kind of interaction, I think, is what pushed me to, I mean, I just had to keep writing, but I thought, you know, I hope that in sharing my reckoning with all this, I hope that someone else has that sensation who needs it. Yeah, we've had a number of years ago now who's become a friend of mine, Megan Devine, who writes about similar things. And she's shared such, you know, the same experience of the world just wants you to sort of get through it, to see the right side. And I guess largely because everybody around you feels so uncomfortable with just the thought of what you're going through, that they want you to feel better
Starting point is 00:28:19 so that they can feel better. It's not necessarily a negative thing. They think they're like offering help, but at the same time, it's really about them and not you. Oh, entirely. Yeah. Essentially, they're asking you in that moment to perform a presentation of yourself to their satisfaction. And that's just not possible. It's not ever going to be possible. So, yeah, I mean, that's, yeah, Megan is a different, if there's a many-sided coin, she's another side of the same coin in that way. Because obviously for her, it was her husband, her partner, I mean. And for me, it was a baby. And I think there are some other layers in there.
Starting point is 00:29:06 In the book, I talk about it feeling a bit like a kaleidoscope, that it's all the same elements. But when you look through it and turn it, you see the same elements, but they rearrange in a way that is something completely distinct. And so I think in our suffering, which is the one thing that really unites us, you know, death and taxes, we see those familiar colors and those familiar shapes kind of clickety-clack their way into something that isn't at all like what I went through, but I can see what I went through in what you went through. And we can kind of connect in those ways, you know. Yeah, yeah. And those connections are absolutely life-saving. And it really, it does feel that way. That sounds like I'm overstating. I had to kind of stop and think, am I saying that too strongly? But I don't think I am. I think when I mean lifesaving, I don't mean CPR. I mean, those moments actually prop up your journey into whatever life then becomes from that point of explosion. Yeah. And as you shared, while you're moving through this time, these were twins and one child was lost, but one child is there and you also had a previous child.
Starting point is 00:30:32 Yeah. you trying to figure out and move through this profound loss. And at the same time, you know, feeling a sense of obligation and wanting to be there for the people who are still with you. Right. Which has got to be just this strange set of polarities to live with on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, like Ben's birthday every year. I mean, people around me say, you've got to stop saying it that way. But it is true. It's Ben's birthday is the anniversary of the worst day of my life. You know, flour and cocoa and thinking, yeah, this was one of the many ways that I lost Liam. You know, we lost him a few times. And he kind of came scrabbling back just by way of intervention, you know, as they have to try.
Starting point is 00:31:42 And it is the anniversary of one of the worst days of my life. And then, you know, that's May 5th. And then June 15th is the anniversary of the other worst day, which is the day he died. But in the same way that there were gifts on that day, on the birthday, obviously Ben is a living testament to that gift. I know exactly what Liam would have looked like, because they were identical. I don't know necessarily that what makes Ben tick would have made Liam tick, but I certainly like thinking about it. But there were also gifts on Liam's death day that were entirely shocking and unexpected.
Starting point is 00:32:26 And I think it's really fascinating how different deaths can be, can feel oddly comforting, oddly wholesome, oddly beautiful. And some of them are just flat out horrific and absolutely nightmarish. And I guess Liam's death was all of those things. But what it left on me was sort of was the imprint of things that I don't know that I'll ever figure out, and I think I'm more content to not try, but to just try to remember what that felt like, you know, because he was right here on my chest when he died. And I think there's some kind of muscle memory there. There was this sensation that I had when he died
Starting point is 00:33:26 that was really unexpected. I think that a lot of us witness death. I can only say that I've only witnessed just the one. A lot of us have been in the room when people have died, but I was actually on him. He was on me when he died. And, you know, after I leave here today, I'm going to go to the Hayden Planetarium, taking myself to church. And I'm going to look up at the stars. And that is the moment that I'm going to be thinking about. And it's beautiful. It was death. It was awful.
Starting point is 00:34:03 It was wrong. It was cosmically messed up. It will forever enrage me. But it was beautiful. It was death. It was awful. It was wrong. It was cosmically messed up. It will forever enrage me, but it was beautiful. And what a funny puzzle it is to be human, you know, and to keep going and to keep on making birthday cakes and toasting bagels and running in mud puddles, because you've still got to do that because you have a two-year-old and a four-year-old at home, at the same time as trying to figure all this stuff out and figure out how to keep going on. But really, that's what we all have to do,
Starting point is 00:34:34 whether it's a two-year-old, a four-year-old, an infant, or a beloved grandparent. We still have to get up in the morning and put jam on a bagel when it feels absurd to be putting food in our mouths, because how can we? But you do, you just do. And that's how we honor the people we love, I think, with strawberry jam. And planetarium visits. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. As you're moving through this, you're writing also. You're waking up every morning, putting the jam on the toast and doing what you need to do to get through every day. And as you said also, like writing was one of your outlets. It was one of your ways to sort of like express what you need to express. And at the same time, you also said that people,
Starting point is 00:35:32 being around people who in some way saw you, understood you, didn't try and make everything better, but just stood next to you, was really, really important to you. And it sounds like you also felt some kind of call to create a way for people who had been through loss to find each other. Right. Where does that come from? How did that sort of begin?
Starting point is 00:35:53 Well, a year after Liam died, I started Glow in the Woods, which is an online community for bereaved parents, particularly those who have experienced infant loss, because there was nowhere, there was nothing. There was a lot online at the time for miscarriage, because miscarriage is really common. But there was really no way of finding a space to be necessarily raw about what I had been through in a way that didn't feel like mixed company. Like I can say some of the things I need to say and have someone else not flinch. And I thought, you know, imagine what that would feel like if I could be in a room full of people who have had a baby on them, who have held a dead child. It sounds so absurd and ridiculous that any of us have to do that.
Starting point is 00:36:52 But what would that feel like? What kind of an exhale would that feel like, to be able to let all our snakes out and no one's going to look away? And so I made that place, and then the years went by, and I sort of went back and kept writing more children's books and eventually kind of graduated away from having to write more frequently about grief because life continues to carry on, and the grief became kind of more embedded,
Starting point is 00:37:28 and that dragon kind of grows content it's still there but it's kind of curled up in front of the fire like a cat you know just resting and only blowing off smoke now and then and so I didn't really need to be writing about that all the time but then I got a call from someone that had really just been a very distant acquaintance through a photography community that I used to write for. And my phone said Paris. And I thought, who do I know in Paris? And I didn't know who it was. I picked it up. And there was a woman on the other end of the phone that was just wailing and crying.
Starting point is 00:38:07 And through her cries, I could figure out that it was this fellow writer on this photographer. And she said, I didn't know who else to call. My son didn't wake up from his nap yesterday. I think he was maybe three or four months old. And you're the only person I could think of that has been through this. And I don't know how to breathe. I don't know what to do. I don't know how I'm supposed to live. And in that moment, I, you know, that was probably, how long ago was that? Maybe seven or eight years past, you know, Liam's death.
Starting point is 00:38:51 And I certainly didn't flinch. And I think in that moment, she needed someone to let her know that she didn't need to die. And I knew what to say to her. Like she just wanted input. She wanted me to talk. And because she didn't have her own words yet. She was just, you know, completely, she was obviously just wrecked. But she needed to hear someone telling her that she wasn't always forever going to be wrecked. And so I hung up the phone after that conversation. And I thought, I think it's time for me to write that book now. That, you know, because I felt calm. I didn't feel like it taxed me to kind of time travel in that way. I'd been kind of delaying writing notes for The Everlost for so long because it is such a deep dive.
Starting point is 00:39:52 And I was just trundling along through my life and life was busy and joyful. And I thought, I don't know if I'm ready to kind of go down to the bottom of that well again in a way that I know is going to be required for me to write this book. But when Iren called me and we had that conversation, it was a call more than just a phone call. And so I hung up the phone and I started writing Ever Lost. And that kind of became that bigger project in creating space for those Medusas, for those people who, you know, not just for infant loss, but for people who are carrying something that feels irreconcilable, that feels like it's upturned everything that they know about how to live. Yeah. I mean, I can imagine also nobody plans for what you went through to happen. Yeah. I mean, I can imagine also nobody plans for what you went through to happen.
Starting point is 00:40:48 Yeah. And as somebody who's on a path, you know, like as a mom, but then also somebody who's, you know, sort of found their way to contribute to the world, like as a writer, as a creator, as a maker, talking about fantasy and beautiful children's stories and illustrated things like that. And then you find yourself in this place, but not necessarily on the one hand, knowing that you're moving through something, knowing that this is, that you're writing, your ability to express and to gather is powerful for you. But also wanting to, not wanting to live in this place for the rest of your life and wanting to sort of like move through it, never being the same, but not staying in the same place that you are and getting to a place years down the road where you're like,
Starting point is 00:41:34 okay, so as you said, there is joy. There's a lot of good in your life. You're able to see it and live in a different place. And you're off and you're writing and you're doing different things and then to get that call and kind of say like weighing, like do I step back into this at this point years down the road? As I've processed,
Starting point is 00:41:57 I've gotten to a certain place. It's not just writing that book. It's you completely dropping back into that place on a personal level. But also when the book comes out, it's you sort of putting a flag in the ground also for a window of time as every author knows when a book comes out saying like, because people will, from that point forward, identify you as the X person, as the lost person, as the grief person, as this person, and look to you for a lot of different things as that person. Was this all sort of what was spinning around your head as you were trying to figure this out? It was, you know, because I found a glow in the woods. And for a while, I sort of, among friends, I would joke that I felt like the Pied Piper of death.
Starting point is 00:42:46 You know, that there was that, plus I was doing public speaking for memorial walks. There was one particular really, really lovely walk in Edmonton that I would do. I think it was six fulfilling, but I didn't want that kind of work creatively to define me any more than I wanted that experience to define me. You know what I mean? Because I want to be multidimensional. I want to be silly and playful and joyful and adventurous and all of those things. I never want to be reduced to, oh, there's the woman whose baby died. So I think that if I hadn't have already written a couple of novels
Starting point is 00:43:35 and if I hadn't already sort of been fairly established as an author before that, I don't know that I would have written Ever Lost as my first book, because then it would be grief author Kate Inglis. Whereas now it really is all over the map. You know, I've got another children's picture book coming up and it's like going from, you know, I would say to people would say, oh, what have you been working on? You did pirates and adventure novels and you did this book about monster poetry and dress up what's next. And I would say, oh, what have you been working on? You did pirates and adventure novels, and you did this book about monster poetry and dress up. What's next? And I would say, oh, death. And people would kind of step back, and I'd have to say, no, no, no, no, it's so good. I'm so excited about this book. But I am glad that it wasn't my first, because then that would be something that would feel somewhat tethered in that defining way.
Starting point is 00:44:28 But, you know, then you just write something else. I mean, you just, it might have just as easily been my first book. Yeah. I mean, well, yes, and, I mean, you do just write something else. And at the same time, when you write something like what you wrote, which is so deep and so moving and about something so emotional, like something that led somebody years later to reach out to you out of nowhere because you were the one person they felt like they could talk to, people will want to keep you in that place. They'll want to define you as that person. Even when you're like, look, this is, I wrote this because I had something to share. I had something to say, and I can't pick up the phone for every person in the world who calls me. So this hopefully will go out into the world and
Starting point is 00:45:14 help me. And then I have other things to write and other things to do and a life to live. There's often when you write something like what you've written about the topic, there is a real compulsion for people to want to keep you as that person. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I mean, for years people would write to me and send me thousands of words, like, let me tell you about my baby. And this would, you know, these little bombs would go off in my email all the time and I would think, oh, okay, right. Like go off in my email all the time. And I would think, oh,
Starting point is 00:45:45 okay, right. Like I need to absorb all these stories. I need to respond to them. So in a way, I guess I hope that Everlost does that. But at the same time, I don't, I've never minded, at least not so far, when people reach out and they say all kinds of things. They say, you know, I didn't lose a baby, but I lost a husband. And they talk to me about where they are in their own reckoning. And they tell me what aspect of my story or what aspect of Everlost felt like input for them. I don't see that book as being answers. Notes for the Everlost is simply sharing and articulating all those questions that will never be answered and that can never be answered. But what do we do in the midst of all this riddle? When we can't make
Starting point is 00:46:42 sense of it, how do we go forward? And it is a shared dialogue. And so I love it when people get in touch and they say, this is what I bring to that dialogue. So far, it doesn't feel taxing. And if it ever does start feeling taxing, then I don't know. I'll have to figure that out when I get there, I guess. But I do hope the book kind of takes on a life of its own in that way. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:47:13 I feel it's more about companionship than to do. Yeah. Yeah. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.
Starting point is 00:47:38 It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations,
Starting point is 00:47:59 iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Part of what you write is also poetry. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, but I would almost say that everything you write is poetry to a certain extent. Oh, thank you. I mean, there's a lyricism and a rhyme and the rhythm to your writing. Right.
Starting point is 00:48:23 And it's also kind of interesting because the topper we're talking about, like people may listen and be like, well, this is heavy. Right, yeah. And at the same time, sitting across from you, people can't see this, but as we've been talking, a lot of times where you're talking about what would be perceived as the darkest moments, there's a smile on your face.
Starting point is 00:48:39 But there's almost like this like knowing smile of like, there's almost like a bit of a sinister smile on your face. Yeah. Like there's a part of you which is a little edgy and sarcastic and snarky. Yeah. Which is really weird that it comes through in your writing in the context of all sorts of different topics. I hope so. In a way which is, which kind of, it just changes the way it lands. I don't ever, that one of my biggest fears
Starting point is 00:49:06 was that my writing would be unintentionally saccharine. Because- Because you're not. I am not a sugary person. I am not a woo-woo person. I love those people, but that is not me. I am a pessimist. I am cantankerous.
Starting point is 00:49:25 I am a pessimist. I am cantankerous. I am angry. I'm not bitter. But I love my anger. I love my discontent. And I love all that I don't understand. I love not understanding things because all the possibility in the world lives there in our lack of understanding tell me more about that well i think that it's why it's why i'm so excited to go to the planetarium i get a real charge out of feeling insignificant and small like like a hiccup in terms of my existence. The fact that we are so insignificant, the fact that our carbon and
Starting point is 00:50:09 our oxygen and everything that all the dust that clings together and happens to make a body, a body that works or a body that doesn't, there is such randomness in it that makes us so extraordinary. You know, our insignificance makes us ridiculously meaningless and ridiculously wonderful. And I love mashing that around in my head, even when it's kind of all wrapped up in my own trauma, in terms of having had a child who died and having had incredibly perplexing and bewildering aspects of having known him and having held him as he died. It's delicious and exquisite to have this, to have been that close to the veil between knowing
Starting point is 00:51:06 everything and knowing nothing. And for 12 hours as he died, after they took out the ventilator, I was at that veil of existence. And that sounds, it feels strange to put it that way, but my goodness, what a gift. I have no answers, but I remember how it felt. And I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but it is one of, I think, probably the biggest treasure in my heart is having held him through that. And I can't tell you why. I can't tell you that I've made any decisions about what happened to him. But it's that pivot point, that insignificance and that lack of knowing that freaks us out so deeply as humans. We really are incredibly arrogant creatures. We love knowing stuff. But what we don't know and submitting to what we don't know and just sort of marveling at it is one of our richest grounds for peace and for gratitude and for your sense of humor, you know, to marvel at all that we don't know. It's just, it's marvelous.
Starting point is 00:52:26 And so that just feels like a really important, I mean, I guess I could call it a practice, but I don't practice it. I just cling on to it, all that I don't know. And that feels important to me. I've heard it argued that the vast majority of what we do during our waking hours is a quest for immortality. Oh, goodness. It's basically everything that we can do to not acknowledge our own and the impermanence of those around us. And at the same time, I know that you're alive on the planet for a certain number of years.
Starting point is 00:53:05 You're going to go through stuff. Everybody is going to experience loss. In your context, it was this one extreme example. But if anybody's listening to this who's older than X years on the planet, you will have experienced your own version of extraordinary loss. And the ability to look at the world and in some way even for a heartbeat see wonder is is everything um and it's simultaneously like you said simultaneously terrifying and and yet is the the biggest gift yeah um and it's also i think you, kind of circling back to a different dimension of what you do as a creator, as a maker, as a writer.
Starting point is 00:53:50 You have to exist in that place for long periods of time because that's where the magic comes from. Yeah, creative people have to play with terrifying things. They're kind of compelled to. And I think it makes all creative people just a little bit wacky in a really good way. But yeah, that is creativity, is to play with what scares us the most. And yeah, what an honor to be able to do that. You teach writing to a certain extent these days, too. Oh, I teach it sometimes, retreats and stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:54:31 Yeah, kind of all over the map. When you do that, is this something that comes up? Is this something that you invite people into? Oh, gosh. Not loss, but the idea of stepping into the space of the extraordinary unknown in the name of tapping something better, bigger, greater. Definitely. I think in order to do any good creative work, even if we're just practicing trying to put words together,
Starting point is 00:55:03 we have to get into territory that's frightening. There is no greater exercise for a writer than to try to articulate what is impossible to articulate. And there was something about doing that in the hospital and every day since that really appeals to that cranky part of me. I am going to find the words to describe how I'm feeling inexpressible thing swallow me whole and so i'm gonna conquer it by expressing it in a way that makes me feel like ah there yeah i've i've i've made something that feels like it represents where I am. And that's so deeply satisfying. And so in encouraging other people to write, whatever they're writing about, we want to try to get there.
Starting point is 00:56:16 It's like how every yoga sort of visionary will tell you that the poses that you hate the most are the ones you need the most, right? Yeah. But I mean, I think we're also afraid, to a certain extent, I think we feel that way about uncertainty, about the unknown. I've also seen, especially with writers, but not just with writers, with literally anybody who would consider themselves in any way tapping their creativity as the way they make their contribution. There's a fear of what darkness might arise if they really just open up and let it flow. I remember years ago, actually, I was at a little cafe in Santa Monica, California with Steve Pressfield, who I've been a long time admirer of and had an opportunity to sit down and interview him. And he was sharing a story with me about a friend of his, it's like a grizzled old cop who had started writing. And as he was writing,
Starting point is 00:57:12 it went to a really dark place and it was scaring him. And he went back to Steve and he's like, this is what's happening. He's like, it's freaking me out. Is this okay? And Steve was like, write through the darkness, write the darkness, like write it all, feel it all, and then write it all. Like, don't censor that. No. Yeah. I mean, you're saying that and I'm just, my reaction is this welling up of, ooh. It's like the good stuff, right? Yeah. But it terrifies us because I don't think we like to see that inside of ourselves. We're like, well, where does that come from? Is there something dark and evil inside of me?
Starting point is 00:57:48 Or if I'm capable of even like seeing stories that go to this place and then expressing them and then just sharing them, you know, is that in some way because that's a part of me? Yeah. And we're terrified of saying, well, maybe it is. It is. Yeah. We,, maybe it is. It is. Yeah, of course it is. Oh my goodness. I mean, I think that people who turn away from their own darkness because they don't want to present that way,
Starting point is 00:58:19 they don't want to be that person, those are not, I'm going to make a statement here that's going to sound rash, I'm going to say it anyway. Those people are going to be less healthy than people who allow their darkness to be there and they figure out how to talk to it. So there's a chapter in the book called A Chat with Death. And I imagine death is a thing that actually has to come and wants to come and talk to me. And nobody wants to talk to death. But those of us who have seen it have to spend the rest of our life talking to it. And sometimes we hide under the bed from it.
Starting point is 00:59:05 Sometimes we're, you know, I think I say having heart to hearts under the sheets with a flashlight, because sometimes talking to death straight in its face is exactly what we need. And God, you can't deny that darkness, because that darkness is just as important as the light. And so why not make it really beautiful? You know, I went to the Met yesterday, and I always seem to go towards the modern wing. And so I was there and there's another painter, Alex Colville, who was from Nova Scotia. And there is extremely expansive darkness in his work, almost mathematically so, in a way that I see, of course, all over the place at the Met. And when you see darkness done well, gosh, it's such a good feeling. It just reaches right out and just grabs you by the scruff, you know? And it might be a little like, it sort of makes us stop, and it might make us uncomfortable, absolutely.
Starting point is 01:00:24 But when it's beautifully done, when someone has really kind of just struck that gong really good and hard, and we can all feel that reverberation through our bodies, whether it's with a painting or a song or a book, anything, that vibration is what helps to connect us and link us as those sentient creatures that we are. And that is so, so, so important and so grounding and so humility-making. You know, we need humility in order, you know, to remind us of our insignificance and to remind us of our fears. Because that, I think, that kind of humility helps us to calm down and realize we're not so important. So that maybe we can just get some work done and get over, get through that sort of spinning chatter in our heads. When you realize, like, listen, you're not that important. Just keep moving forward.
Starting point is 01:01:33 You know, that that humility that comes from that vibration, from seeing really good, juicy darkness is a really wonderful thing. Yeah, it's so interesting as you're saying this. What flashed into my head was that much of the top of the podcast charts right now are really beautifully produced and well-told true crime stories. Right, right. And I've always kind of marveled at that. I'm like, yes, it's a part of the human condition,
Starting point is 01:02:02 but I mean, and it's not even that it's being produced. It's that the fact that it is persistently at the very top of the charts means it's being devoured. It is being massively consumed. And I often wonder, I'm like, okay, so we're at a time in society right now where people are pretty anxious on edge as it is. And yet so much of what they're turning to to distract them from their day-to-day are beautifully told stories about rage and murder and death. I'm like, what is going on here? Yeah. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:02:34 I don't even, I mean, you know, all of our big shot movies right now are apocalyptic. Yeah. We play it out over and over and over again. There's something about the human condition that draws us there. And not in a way that makes us yearn to do or partake, but there's something that in some odd way connects us. Yeah, because I think whether it's true crime or whether it's some pulpy horror flick or something, there is that moment of like, are you freaked out? Yeah, man, I'm freaked out. Oh, that was freaky. And there's this sort of like, are you scared shitless right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like there's something about gore.
Starting point is 01:03:16 There's something about, you know, beautiful gore that we're all going to have a little bit of our own. And, you know, and it can be beautiful and it can be artful and we see it all over the place. And yeah, I like that. So as we sit here, this feels a good place for us to come full circle as well. So if I offer out the phrase, to live a good life, what comes up?
Starting point is 01:03:50 I think in order to live a good life? What comes out? I think in order to live a good life in a way that is sustainable, not just in this moment to say, what is a good life? A good life is a vacation, or a good life is a beautiful home. Not like that, but the kind of sort of centering in the body that you get when you make peace with darkness. And when you do that, when you have, you know, when you're no longer afraid of that dragon inside you, when you don't mind the heat of it, when you acknowledge the heat of it and say, all right, little dragon, you burn on, because of course you should, because of what you've seen and what you've felt. And when you can let that live alongside the joy of the most perfect bowl of French onion soup
Starting point is 01:04:43 on a really cold day and just have that perfect little moment that is just tactile and listening to the conversations of the people around you and feeling really lucky and the sun is streaming through the window and you just have this perfect bowl of soup and the dragon is there And I'm carrying it around with me. And I'm proud with how I carry it around. And I think that is the underpinning necessary for a good life. Thank you.
Starting point is 01:05:16 Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com.
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Starting point is 01:06:07 share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.
Starting point is 01:06:42 And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.
Starting point is 01:07:04 I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot if we need him! Y'all need a pilot?
Starting point is 01:07:14 Flight Risk.

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