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Alycia Pirmohamed's avatar

Absolutely gorgeous and heartbreaking/healing in turns.

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Meg Bertera-Berwick's avatar

gosh, thank you, Alycia <3

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Hannah Lees's avatar

and your words here / in the essay / in the book help dissolve that shame for others, too. always that fear of being “too much” (here too much grief, too much love), but it is the wanton destruction that is too much. we have no choice but to love these plants and places with such ferocity and tenderness x

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Meg Bertera-Berwick's avatar

Hannah, you always have the most perfect, strongest words to describe these kinds of feelings about this kind of violence, yes yes yes <3

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Jenny McCallum's avatar

Thank you for writing about this Meg, somewhat similar things are happening to people all the time and it's heartening if heartbreaking to hear you recognise the full emotional impact of losing your garden and starting again. (reminding me of the day our ex-landlords-but-one gravelled over the pond outside our window without warning) Looking forward to the essay and the book!!

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Meg Bertera-Berwick's avatar

Oh my god, your poor pond!! How traumatising!!

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Roxani Krystalli's avatar

That withered cosmos is beautiful and poetic -- and it breaks my heart. Our rituals of mourning ought to include gardens too. Thank you for writing this.

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Meg Bertera-Berwick's avatar

💚 i'm touched that it resonated with you, thank you, Roxani!

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Cally's avatar

3 years, and your garden lives on in my heart. It has deepened my relationship with my own space, particularly as we are in the middle of te forced demolishing of our sheds, which were such enablers of the growth here, and the peace.

Having to smash and tear them up, saving every scrap possible for raised beds, birdhouses and homes for the displaced bees, wasps and butterflies. I repeatedly think of your garden, and of the G3•NO•CYD£ and land-grabs we witness over and over.

The entire process is part of a collective grieving, just as what I will try to bring to the space left will be part of collective healing. You are intertwined in this. So grateful for years of your words, and for our parallel autistic realisations.

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Meg Bertera-Berwick's avatar

aw Cally, it's been breaking my heart to see your gorgeous sheds get dismantled. I learn so much from you all the time in how resourceful you are amidst these awful periods of forced change. I really aspire to the energy you bring to these places of resistance, and the constancy of your support for others on socials. Grateful to be connected with you in this digital ecology!

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