The Registry of Grief and Delight

An exhibit at A.P.E. gallery in Northampton, MA during March, 2025

Jun 15, 2025

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Today’s post was written while listening to the new Lucius album, self-titled, specifically “Final Days” because it’s beautiful.

An ask from me: after you read through this post, if you make it all the way through or not, I hope you’ll provide your Register of Grief and Delight in the comments. I’d love to read them.

Hi!

It continues to be long stretches between posts. Sometimes because life feels overwhelming enough, I can’t imagine sitting down to write anything. Also, when you’ve been away for a while it’s like “how do I say - oh, hi, I’m back!” without doing the same thing repeatedly? :)

Anyway, back in late March I posted “Part I: Carrying Anticipatory Grief While Learning about Death”. LUCKILY, I did follow up with Part II which concluded my honoring of my sweet baby angel Ellum, as well. But, in the former, I laid out three things I wanted to talk more about:

Attending A.P.E. Gallery’s exhibit called “Registry of Grief and Delight”,
Beginning my Death Doula coursework through UVM’s program (up next… maybe!),
Saying an incredibly grief-filled goodbye to my ride-or-die, sweet angel companion of 16 years, my buddy… my sweet cat Ellum (reference Parts I & II above for this one).

I promise I’ll do a recap of my End-of-Life (Death) Doula program at UVM soon, but there’s just so much heaviness in the world right now, I wanted to talk about creating and art today - specifically, an absolutely moving and important exhibit that I had the luck of stumbling across back in March right when I needed it. Unfortunately, the exhibit has closed out making way for new ones. Luckily, I captured numerous photos to share about the experience. Given the horrors that persist worldwide, I thought today might be a good day to revisit that exhibit.

We are all straddling a chasm of grief and delight. In one moment that bombs are dropping on children and innocent people, a child/sister/friend graduates from college. As families are ripped apart and taken from their homes illegally, a wedding of two amazing people occurs on a beautiful summer day. A world of both/and. Grief/delight.

I am personally watching these horrors with more grief and a little bit less delight these days. But I do know that the intersection of grief and art provide joy, a balm for tyranny, connection, and a reminder that when things feel so hopeless and so alone - it’s anything but hopeless and we are not alone.

Back in March while I was running errands on a more-hopeless-feeling-than-not-Sunday, I walked by a local art gallery. I walk by this gallery dozens of times in a week or a month and often smile as my feet continue to walk by, with my heart saying “you should check that out!” and my head saying “finish the things you need to do”. A frequent competition that my head often wins with more regularity, much to my soul’s dismay.

BUT - not this day. I almost walked by until I read the title - “The Registry of Grief and Delight”. I had no idea what this meant, and probably can still not do it as much justice as it deserves, so I’ll let the archive for the A.P.E. Gallery website explain:

Registry of Grief and Delight is a space to rest, reflect, and register the vast and subtle power of our individual and collective humanity in this moment. Conceived of by A.P.E. co-directors / stewards, it is intended as a space/act of community care that resists erasure. The installation offers a place for gathering, grieving, and connecting; for joy and delight; for community, introspection, and celebration. Visitors are offered ways to ‘register’ their griefs and/or delights in this time and, if they desire, leave them in the gallery so that others might find company in them.
Charged by poet Jack Gilbert’s words, We must risk delight, we conceive of this installation as an act of refusal against the forces that wish to isolate us into narrow experiences of being. In the face of the current onslaught of degradation and erasure, we are reminded anew of the necessity of feeling and making known the wholeness of our living selves. And to trust that we will find company with others doing the same. We must risk delight, grief, love, connection, sorrow, gratitude, weariness, interdependence, rage, vulnerability, joy. Doing so asserts the richness of our being and nourishes our capacity to fully participate in this world, together. It is our hope that the actions taken in the gallery this month will create, day by day, an accumulation of fierce and tender presence.

I was the only person in the gallery this day. Upon entering, the kind person at the desk explained this was an unexpected and temporary exhibit. The reason why? Hate and threatened acts of violence. From the archived website:

March 2025 had been curated to feature the powerful work of a local trans artist. Out of concern for the safety of himself, those people uplifted in his work, and the gallery, the artist chose to cancel the exhibition. In solidarity with this artist’s experience, we, the co-directors / stewards of A.P.E., committed ourselves to develop an offering through which we could tend to ourselves, each other, and our community.

As an aside, after the Registry of Grief and Delight exhibit’s success and a massive amount of love from the community, the artist was eventually able to go forward with their exhibit.

Back to the Registry of Grief and Delight…

My heart won out and my soul was fed - believe me when I tell you that I cried almost instantly and the whole way through this exhibit. It was beautiful. On either side of the room strings hung holding numerous postcards with a front and a back. One side featured the Register of Grief and the other the Register of Delight. On either side, or sometimes on only a single side, visitors could express their inner truths about the state of their experiences as humans in the world. What was their grief? What was their delight? Did everyone experience both? Was it possible in times like these?

dozens of strings and postcards hanging from the walls with various writing — Registry of Grief and Delight installation at A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton, MA back in March 2025.

Down the center of the exhibit was a long table with chairs. On the table were numerous registry cards and writing utensils of various kinds. It was quiet, calm, serene. I took my time walking through. I read every. single. card. The description above stated the goal of the gallery was to “create…an accumulation of fierce and tender presence”. From my perspective? Beyond achieved.

Below are some of the registers that gave me pause, caused me to weep, and even some that made me giggle. Our fellow humans may be flawed, but we are alive and experiencing the fierce tender presence of life on earth together - whether we like it or not.

“9/10th of my family floated away out of the smoke stakes of Poland and rained down as ash over the dark forests. We are there again. I don’t know how to make peace with fascist America.”

“Hitler called people with disabilities ‘useless eaters’ - I’m on SSI/SSDI/SSP Medicare Mass Health, Section 8, SNAP, & HEAP. Thanks to a girl in a wheelchair speaking Sunday March 9th at Pulaski Park I heard that above and I yelled out with upraised arms ‘useless eater & proud of it!’ Resist invisibility and silence. ‘Your silence will not protect you’ as Audre Lord said. Know you are not alone. Your speaking out is not for you alone. It is for everyone - MILLIONS - who are in the same boat… Find your people like you and band together, empower each other. Protest! Speak!”

“Grief for all the suffering of the world - the darkness that takes so many. Delight that the life force, the human spirit and the voice of love are perennial - incorrigible, irresistible.”

“EAT THE RICH”

“I miss my cat” (same, though)

“I’m delighting in the spring and the blossoming of new love and joy on my spirit - My very being becoming so much more alive. I’m grieving the loss of someone close and special to me… The loss of another part of childhood and a place I called home.”