“RADIO SILENCE Book of Walks has a stillness to it. It’s like a capacious stopping point, a place where it’s safe to feel your way into the crannies of loss and love.” -Cate McQuaid
The Book of Walks operates like a walk itself, with a poetic recounting of some of the most memorable walks over the first 2 years. It simulates the path we walk, and acts as a spacious grief meditation for the reader.
The Lost Pond is a wilded sanctuary space in Massachusetts. It includes long, meandering trails, a kettle hole, and a quaking bog. A section of the surrounding woods was recently remediated, because of its proximity to the (now closed) town dump. I call this site ‘The Clearing’. When our beautiful, vibrant son Lucas unexpectedly died in his sleep in 2017, we made a provisional shrine in the adjacent woods with sticks and flowers, along the trail to Lost Pond. It continues to be a site of pilgrimage for us.
I began inviting people to walk with me through the trails of the Lost Pond in 2019. The invitation was not for an ordinary walk, it was to join me on an audiowalk I made in collaboration with my musician friends. It involves walking while listening to geo-located music, sounds, and song, along with live storytelling and trail guiding by me. It’s called the RADIO SILENCE audio-walk. By now I have guided this audio-walk hundreds of times, with all kinds of walking companions, through all kinds of crazy weather. It has become a repetitive grief ritual for me, pressing my feet over and over into the soft, well-worn ground of mourning.
Designed by John Kramer, this book is a beautiful object. Inside the cover, you’ll find a hand-painted map of the woods, stitched binding, an insightful essay by sculptor Jill Slosburg-Ackerman, a QR code to access the 25 minute audio, and stunning images by the photographer Kelly Davidson and Elijah Mickelson. Text and other imagery by Deb Todd Wheeler. Edited by Tessa Day.
Proceeds from the sale of this book go to support the vital works of The Children’s Room in Arlington, MA.
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