My first newsletter

EDITION #01

This is my beginning.

Broken glass and a determined weed at the ruins of Klowa Art Cafe in Lytton

Hi, it’s Meghan, here on the edge of Lytton.

I’ve never written my own newsletter and I’d like to pretend I know what I’m doing (that I’m a perfectly poised, I-know-just-how-much-to-share kind of person).

I don’t, and I’m not, so l need your input: please write me back to say hi and to tell me what you’d like to hear about. Let’s create this community together.

Before the Lytton fire, I owned Klowa Art Cafe, a vibrant little coffeeshop that was lost to the fire.

Many of you are receiving this email because you signed up to Klowa’s newsletter in the months after the fire. But there was never a newsletter, not until now.

I wanted to be able to share, to tell you about my grief and hope and the way I was struggling to keep the idea of Klowa alive even after it burned down, but the trauma was too intense. I folded myself up in painful isolation, retreat.

Now, two years after the fire, I would like to tell you about it, little by little.

I went to Klowa’s ruins last week.

It was only my fourth time back since the 2021 fire, even though it’s just a five-minute walk down the hill from my house. For so long, we were only allowed back with a “safety” escort, and I couldn’t do it: I couldn’t share my grief with a stranger.

Last week, I spent a moment in the ruins with my daughter Helen. It was her first time there, at the place where she spent most of her first five years, and it was still surreal. It felt less painful than the first three visits, though. It felt like resignation.

And I want to tell you about my book.

About a year ago, when I was finally ready to start processing the trauma of the fire, I started writing out a memory. And then there was another, and another, and before long there was a stack of typewritten pages.

Those pages tell my story of the fire and the year after, the hardest year I have ever experienced. But that year also had moments of beauty and community and love, and they’re part of the story, too.

My little book is called Burning Sage: Poems from the Lytton fire and it will be released on September 1 with Caitlin Press. I can’t wait to share it with you.

When we were at Klowa’s ruins, Helen took this photo of me, there on the fire-stained bricks of the courtyard.

The lavender and ivy are gone; the café lights and the fence they were draped over have turned to ash and been swept away. Where there once was a cosy secret garden, the courtyard is open, exposed. And now, when everything else is gone, you can see the mountains.

Thanks for coming along on this journey.

With love,
Meghan

meghanfandrich.com

Listening to each other