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Sad House: Parenting, Grief, and Creativity in the Coronavirus Crisis
There's no guidebook for parenting during a pandemic. Sheltering at home means being yourself in front of your kids--all day, every day--without much reprieve. When Laura Stanfill's best friend was killed by the virus in April 2020, her daughters experienced her grief at close range. Over the next several months, with storytelling and art, gardening and games, Laura found her imperfect way through deep grief--just in time to weather a second major loss. SAD HOUSE offers a guide for family resilience, growth, and how small, shared joys can sustain a household in difficult times.
68 pages, Paperback
Published September 8, 2020
About the author
Laura Stanfill
7 books48 followersOnce upon a time, Laura Stanfill lived in a New Jersey house filled with music boxes, street organs, and books. She grew up to become the publisher of Forest Avenue Press. SINGING LESSONS FOR THE STYLISH CANARY (Lanternfish) is her debut novel. Her essays have appeared in Shondaland, The Rumpus, Catapult, The Vincent Brothers Review, Santa Fe Writers Project, and several print anthologies. She believes in indie bookstores and wishes on them like stars from her home in Portland, Oregon, where she resides with her family and Waffles the dog. Learn more at laurastanfill.com.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 20, 2020
I get to write the first review? Cool. I'll do my best.
I got my copy of "Sad House; Parening, Grief and Creativity," just yesterday, in the mail, by the lovely Laura Stanfill - an autographed copy. And I've read it today, twice. I'll keep it nearby my nightstand because the passages make me think and also give me ideas. At just over 65 pages, it is perfect.
This little "Zine" is a well conceived and perfectly written short remembrance of Stanfill's best friend, Priya Khanna, (who died in early April of Covid-19 Coronavirus) and how that loss impacted Laura and her family, how it transformed her home and impacted her two young daughters, here in the time of Covid-19, Coronavirus. Reading this work, so many things come out at me, and remind me of the past in my own life, when I was a single mother. Perhaps that's the best thing about this little book, is that it helps us see how universal our struggles are. Number one is the honest and skilled way in which Laura writes. Laura is a writer of skill and elegance and it shows. Passages stand out, so I'll share them.
On Page 6, "The girls can sense my emotion flooding through the house. It's an unmistakable perfume, grief." Lovely!
She lists a "Grief Resume" which I'd never heard of and I have to say, I like the idea of it. It makes sense to me. Now, I plan to write my own Grief Resume. It will be long. Laura shares the last text messages between her best friend Priya and illustrates how the impact of language can change what we do. Promises we choose to keep, while remembering those we have loved and lost. Honoring their words, their wishes for our safety, continued happiness and our survival, those words carry a weight along with them.
Laura writes about quarantine and how it changes what we do, how some things become important while others no longer bother us. How many of us can relate to this? "I don't pick up toys and books in the living room unless I want to, because it's just us. I don't care what my kids' rooms look like. They pull clean clothes out of a laundry basket. Pick mismatched socks or go barefoot."
Laura writes about contending with online school for her two daughters and how they are being asked to identify plants growing in their yard and how different this new normals is. She writes about The Decameron, and how she studied it in college. That I have read The Decameron too, which for me is a beautiful and hefty 100-year-old copy makes me smile. She compares The Decameron, begun in 1348 and finished in 1353, to what we are doing right now, laying low, in the time of a pandemic, and telling each other stories, all in an effort to "...escape the plague." I'd never even thought of that. But upon reflection, The Decameron is exactly what people are doing right now.
Laura writes about the grief of her two young daughters, now suddenly having to create a new normal, and how much they miss school, how they miss their friends, but also about her daughters confusion, their fear at seeing their mother in deep grief and not understanding or knowing what to do to assuage that grief, how they fight, like all sisters do and how they try to make up afterwards. She writes about friendship and how remote friendship sustains her during this time of grief and grieving, when Priya's father also dies of the virus less than two weeks after his daughter and of a cherished friend, liz, who leaves a gift on the doorstep.
And Laura writes about hope, about projects, what therapists used to call Occupational Therapy and how this new focus also helps. "Projects, I have come to realize, help more than sleep. After a nap, I rise to the same reality, but if I can paint or draw or bake or pull an hour's worth of weeds, my day changes in a small but measurable way."
And Laura writes of fear too, the fear she feels and the fear her daughter feels, of going out to find that precious Mailbox, so letters can be mailed. "Every time we take this journey-our own micro adventure into the wasteland and back Holly complains about how far it is midway up the big hill... Now leaving our block feels too far. Even with masks. The wasteland metaphor, perhaps, is something she feels in her muscles and joints. She wants to go home."
She writes about rejection, something all writers of any merit or experience are intimately familiar with. She writes about remembering when a dog attacked her and her two daughters on a street she had walked for years and creates an incredibly moving metaphor about that experience: "You walk down a street every weekday for years, and it's always safe. You don't worry about the dog until the dog finds you. And then you can't walk down the street without thinking about the dog. That somehow feels like a microcosm of parenting during a pandemic."
Anyhow, there are so many other parts of this work that are so moving and honest and frankly, after reading it twice, I wished it were longer. I wanted to read more, because it is so relatable. But just know that this is a tenderly rendered, and achingly honest work. The last page is poetic and lovely and absolutely perfect. If you want to feel better about everything during these "historical times" and particularly if you are a parent, then buy this little book, but not from Amazon, like I had initially thought myself, but from Microcosm Publishing in Portland, Oregon.
As Laura Stanfill so eloquently expresses, we have much to be grateful for in this time, and yet, parenting during a viral pandemic can, I know, be lonely and confusing especially for parents still young enough to have small children.
My house during the Covid-19 Cornonavirus pandemic is a different place and truly an empty nest. My daughter is 28, married and in graduate school. I've been without her for almost ten years now, as that was when she decided to leave home and take on the world. I've dealt with the solitude that has become my life, but I can't imagine the stress and the sadness of being a mother during this time in history. If you are that mother, or if you know a mother in the same situation, then buy them this book. Christmas is right around the corner and it will make a perfect gift tucked snugly in a Holiday Stocking. One day, we will look back, those of us who survive this virus and we will be grateful we had this little book to read.
It is a comfort. The kind you don't easily forget.
I got my copy of "Sad House; Parening, Grief and Creativity," just yesterday, in the mail, by the lovely Laura Stanfill - an autographed copy. And I've read it today, twice. I'll keep it nearby my nightstand because the passages make me think and also give me ideas. At just over 65 pages, it is perfect.
This little "Zine" is a well conceived and perfectly written short remembrance of Stanfill's best friend, Priya Khanna, (who died in early April of Covid-19 Coronavirus) and how that loss impacted Laura and her family, how it transformed her home and impacted her two young daughters, here in the time of Covid-19, Coronavirus. Reading this work, so many things come out at me, and remind me of the past in my own life, when I was a single mother. Perhaps that's the best thing about this little book, is that it helps us see how universal our struggles are. Number one is the honest and skilled way in which Laura writes. Laura is a writer of skill and elegance and it shows. Passages stand out, so I'll share them.
On Page 6, "The girls can sense my emotion flooding through the house. It's an unmistakable perfume, grief." Lovely!
She lists a "Grief Resume" which I'd never heard of and I have to say, I like the idea of it. It makes sense to me. Now, I plan to write my own Grief Resume. It will be long. Laura shares the last text messages between her best friend Priya and illustrates how the impact of language can change what we do. Promises we choose to keep, while remembering those we have loved and lost. Honoring their words, their wishes for our safety, continued happiness and our survival, those words carry a weight along with them.
Laura writes about quarantine and how it changes what we do, how some things become important while others no longer bother us. How many of us can relate to this? "I don't pick up toys and books in the living room unless I want to, because it's just us. I don't care what my kids' rooms look like. They pull clean clothes out of a laundry basket. Pick mismatched socks or go barefoot."
Laura writes about contending with online school for her two daughters and how they are being asked to identify plants growing in their yard and how different this new normals is. She writes about The Decameron, and how she studied it in college. That I have read The Decameron too, which for me is a beautiful and hefty 100-year-old copy makes me smile. She compares The Decameron, begun in 1348 and finished in 1353, to what we are doing right now, laying low, in the time of a pandemic, and telling each other stories, all in an effort to "...escape the plague." I'd never even thought of that. But upon reflection, The Decameron is exactly what people are doing right now.
Laura writes about the grief of her two young daughters, now suddenly having to create a new normal, and how much they miss school, how they miss their friends, but also about her daughters confusion, their fear at seeing their mother in deep grief and not understanding or knowing what to do to assuage that grief, how they fight, like all sisters do and how they try to make up afterwards. She writes about friendship and how remote friendship sustains her during this time of grief and grieving, when Priya's father also dies of the virus less than two weeks after his daughter and of a cherished friend, liz, who leaves a gift on the doorstep.
And Laura writes about hope, about projects, what therapists used to call Occupational Therapy and how this new focus also helps. "Projects, I have come to realize, help more than sleep. After a nap, I rise to the same reality, but if I can paint or draw or bake or pull an hour's worth of weeds, my day changes in a small but measurable way."
And Laura writes of fear too, the fear she feels and the fear her daughter feels, of going out to find that precious Mailbox, so letters can be mailed. "Every time we take this journey-our own micro adventure into the wasteland and back Holly complains about how far it is midway up the big hill... Now leaving our block feels too far. Even with masks. The wasteland metaphor, perhaps, is something she feels in her muscles and joints. She wants to go home."
She writes about rejection, something all writers of any merit or experience are intimately familiar with. She writes about remembering when a dog attacked her and her two daughters on a street she had walked for years and creates an incredibly moving metaphor about that experience: "You walk down a street every weekday for years, and it's always safe. You don't worry about the dog until the dog finds you. And then you can't walk down the street without thinking about the dog. That somehow feels like a microcosm of parenting during a pandemic."
Anyhow, there are so many other parts of this work that are so moving and honest and frankly, after reading it twice, I wished it were longer. I wanted to read more, because it is so relatable. But just know that this is a tenderly rendered, and achingly honest work. The last page is poetic and lovely and absolutely perfect. If you want to feel better about everything during these "historical times" and particularly if you are a parent, then buy this little book, but not from Amazon, like I had initially thought myself, but from Microcosm Publishing in Portland, Oregon.
As Laura Stanfill so eloquently expresses, we have much to be grateful for in this time, and yet, parenting during a viral pandemic can, I know, be lonely and confusing especially for parents still young enough to have small children.
My house during the Covid-19 Cornonavirus pandemic is a different place and truly an empty nest. My daughter is 28, married and in graduate school. I've been without her for almost ten years now, as that was when she decided to leave home and take on the world. I've dealt with the solitude that has become my life, but I can't imagine the stress and the sadness of being a mother during this time in history. If you are that mother, or if you know a mother in the same situation, then buy them this book. Christmas is right around the corner and it will make a perfect gift tucked snugly in a Holiday Stocking. One day, we will look back, those of us who survive this virus and we will be grateful we had this little book to read.
It is a comfort. The kind you don't easily forget.
November 12, 2020
Laura Stanfill's Sad House chapbook exquisitely dissects a slim slice of her life. Trying to navigate the practically impossible task of juggling homeschooling, family, and work during a pandemic becomes even more untenable when her best friend dies of covid. She's wracked with grief and has no idea how to integrate this into her life. Trying to process her grief through art, gardening, baking, and assigning herself tasks, she walks a crooked line between family and self. The arguments, the giving up, the unknowing, the 10 minutes of peace while locked in the bathroom, the smallest of victories: it's all pure heart work, and she flies blindly through it. Stanfill's ability to be vulnerable in front of her children is a thing of beauty, and I can only imagine the profound gift she is giving her daughters by living through this in front of them. Beautifully done, Sad House is a tiny jewel.
December 25, 2020
An honest-to-god record of the first traumatic months of quarantine, with grief and parenting thrown into the mix. It’s a heartbreaking little volume of melancholy and trying to keep ones head above water. As Stanfill writes about how creative projects keep her and her daughters afloat, a meta-layer creeps in as you realize you are holding one of said projects in your hands. God my heart hurts.
August 7, 2022
Such a sad but sweet depiction of a moment in time, of the hard feelings and harder actions a grieving mom goes through at the beginning of the pandemic and the initial Covid lockdowns. My favorite was the Hawk chapter. Lots of life lessons and small moments and metaphors and art in this tiny book. Disclosure: I am a white woman of the same age as the author (both born in 76!) and I also grew up in New Jersey and am a writer and craft maker and publisher and have the same progressive values this author talks about in this book. Just thought I’d add this so readers might get a sense of the author and audience voice.
March 28, 2021
I hope that when historians look back on April/May 2020 and try to understand what it was like, that they come across this small zine-like book. It so perfectly encapsulates the grief, fear and loneliness of the early covid period, as well as the small shows of community support from a distance, the melancholy that accompanies a disconnection from those we hold dear, and ultimately the steadfastness to do the best one can.
May 22, 2022
A short zine that really beautifully reflects upon not only the grief of the beginning of the pandemic, but also the death of a beloved friend from covid. As a pediatric oncology nurse my grief resume is a strange one and my kids have experienced some of the fall out.I appreciated Laura's open honesty about her experience.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews