Author Ailsa Piper on how writing For Life led her to find hope and inspiration in unexpected places.
I began writing For Life out of obedience. Odd thing to say, perhaps, but people would often come up to me at writing events and festivals and say that I spoke so eloquently about grief that I must write about it. Flattering maybe - but back then, I had no idea at all what to do with myself. My life, as it had been, was in shards. So I listened to them, remembering my sister saying to me, as I sat at my dining table writing my husband’s eulogy, that it was the first time I had looked normal.
I wanted normal, so I began. I wrote freeform, but I also got commissions. Some I could deliver, but some I could not. One editor asked for more hope. I couldn’t deliver it, and that told me something: I needed to locate it. But of course, hope isn’t something that can be summoned at will. All I could do was keep my eyes open for it and follow where it might lead when I located it.
It led me to water. It led me to winged things. It led me to a community of eccentric and battle-scarred veterans. It led me back and back to art – to looking at it and to trying, in my own ways, to make it. It led me to the past, to revisit and reacquaint myself with it. It led me to a real estate agent with soft wisdom, and it insisted on leading me to two lighthouses.
Light…
Gradually it came back into my days. Gradually I learned to recognise what was therapy on the page, made only for myself, and what was being crafted for readers. That took the longest time. I never wanted to write a catalogue of woe, of mine or the planet’s. Birds, despite being endangered and hunted, were not seeking pain – they were seeking sky. So I tried to emulate them. Like the creatures, I looked for ways to make more life.
And oh! My father…
My darling Dad, at 92, with failing body and heart but the eyes of a peregrine, was still insisting that life could be made.
And so, at my desk, I tried to follow where the book wanted me to go. It changed titles. It led me to Sydney and Melbourne and Perth - it really is a tale of three cities! And it is a tale of love – for two men who showed me so much of how to live; for the many who went before me; and for seahorses and falcons. I hope, most of all, that For Life is a tale of remembering to love life. I hope it proclaims that I am for life. The location doesn’t matter; even the road we take doesn’t matter, but the open-eyed, open-hearted living does.
For Life: A memoir of living and dying - and flying by Ailsa Piper is an unforgettable and moving insight into loss, hope and starting again.
For Life
by Ailsa Piper
An unforgettable and moving insight into loss, hope and starting again, aided by the incredible healing power of nature and a community of unexpected angels.
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