Voices From the Garden: A Performance Ethnography

Abstract

Dad died. He wasn’t supposed to. Not yet. We had hoped for one more summer together in the garden. It was not to be. Then, there was the dissertation; none of it made sense anymore. Until, until—the sages (Annie Dillard, Peter Reason, Orlando Fals-Borda, and so many others) whispered in my ear that human inquiry should “work along the nerve of our most intimate sensitivity.” Here was permission to write my way through this loss. The gift of the garden was what I was left with and where I must move forward. And who knew so many little ones were waiting to come home.