Whenever I visit the house of my grandfather, who now lives in a single room of a nursing home, I drop my stuff in the entryway and go straight to the basement, waving a rolled-up newspaper like a wand to clear a path through the cobwebs.
Love this. It has a nice, spooky feeling. Here is my contribution to the spirit of the essay (although it's not a neologism and not Greek, it is amusing!): Kummerspeck: The weight we gain from emotional overeating. Literally: Grief bacon.
Immediately thought of a B/W photo of my grandparents farm where my mom grew up. My favorite place to go as a kid. A barn, chickens and cows, Grandma’s cooking. Now it is gone, a victim of oil & mineral development, everything scraped away by bulldozers and derricks. Now I have a new word for this hollowness.
In the void. Christian you reach into the basement and kenopsis rises from the depths of despair. A world tunnel discovered is eviscerated by explosions that catapult lives to result in anemoria future times never known by world children yet to see a life without gashes, amputees. I am empty. What word explains later today? A few minutes away. In seconds the basement collapsed. Are we lucky to survive. To be found under a grandfather’s trunk of memories that are useless trying to breathe concrete dust. What word?
Beautiful. Thank you for bringing this word to me. My home city of Kolkata is full of mansions that evoke the same sentiment, sometimes in their utter abandonment, but maybe sometimes also in their degraded afterlife. It isn't kenopsia then, but something else, I guess.
Love this. It has a nice, spooky feeling. Here is my contribution to the spirit of the essay (although it's not a neologism and not Greek, it is amusing!): Kummerspeck: The weight we gain from emotional overeating. Literally: Grief bacon.
I could go for some grief bacon
First piece I've read by you. Excellent, Christian.
Thanks, Mike, glad you enjoyed it!
Immediately thought of a B/W photo of my grandparents farm where my mom grew up. My favorite place to go as a kid. A barn, chickens and cows, Grandma’s cooking. Now it is gone, a victim of oil & mineral development, everything scraped away by bulldozers and derricks. Now I have a new word for this hollowness.
Really enjoyed reading this piece.
Hey, whattya know: https://open.substack.com/pub/jenn5c3s4/p/kenopsia?r=1fslzq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
In the void. Christian you reach into the basement and kenopsis rises from the depths of despair. A world tunnel discovered is eviscerated by explosions that catapult lives to result in anemoria future times never known by world children yet to see a life without gashes, amputees. I am empty. What word explains later today? A few minutes away. In seconds the basement collapsed. Are we lucky to survive. To be found under a grandfather’s trunk of memories that are useless trying to breathe concrete dust. What word?
Is the top picture with the piano from the book the Ruins of Detroit?
I actually found that photo in the book ‘Lost Pianos of Siberia’
´Lost pianos' is the best book we've read this year!
It’s excellent isn’t it! You’d love Sophy Robert’s podcast too, called “Gone to Timbuktu.”
Will check that out. Thanks!
Thanks. I’ll have to look it up. Love this post. The first post I wrote for Huffington Post was about the book the Ruins of Detroit.
Beautiful. Thank you for bringing this word to me. My home city of Kolkata is full of mansions that evoke the same sentiment, sometimes in their utter abandonment, but maybe sometimes also in their degraded afterlife. It isn't kenopsia then, but something else, I guess.