Ever since Leah Neas submitted, "We Walk With Phantoms,” as a song title, I’d been mulling around the idea of past lovers and lost loved ones haunting us like phantoms. During lunch today I was reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I’m in the second chapter. At this point in her story Cheryl is one day away from embarking on her solo journey along the Pacific Crest Trail. She has lost her mother to cancer, the rest of her family is distant and she is newly divorced.
“I had beloved friends whom I sometimes referred to as family, but our commitments to each other were informal and intermittent, more familial in word than in deed. Blood is thicker than water, my mother had always said when I was growing up, a sentiment I’d often disputed. But it turned out that it didn’t matter whether she was right or wrong. They both flowed out of my cupped hands.”
This passage really struck me. It’s such a beautiful and tangible image of loss.
A huge thank you to Leah Neas who submitted, "We Walk With Phantoms" as a song title.
We Walk With Phantoms
Tara Craig 2014
So many letters I wrote
but I’ll never send
So many thoughts of you
Shadows of you
They’re taunting me
We walk with phantoms
We are surrounded
We walk with phantoms of love we once had
Intricate maps I’ve drawn
And still somehow I’m lost
And you never find me
Intricate maps
I’ve drawn all details
of places and people
and things you taught me
That you taught me
We walk with phantoms
We are surrounded
We walk with phantoms of love we once had
*They say blood
Is thicker than water
But they both flow from my cupped hands
We walk with phantoms
We are surrounded
We walk with phantoms of love we once had
*Lyrics adapted from the following passage of Wild:
“I had beloved friends whom I sometimes referred to as family, but our commitments to each other were informal and intermittent, more familial in word than in deed. Blood is thicker than water, my mother had always said when I was growing up, a sentiment I’d often disputed. But it turned out that it didn’t matter whether she was right or wrong. They both flowed out of my cupped hands."
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail is a 2012 memoir by American author Cheryl Strayed, describing her 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail in a journey of self-discovery.
Published: March 20, 2012