EXTRACT A
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. You and everyone around will bleed. You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
EXTRACT B
If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.
EXTRACT C
The cold is cruel, but it is not alive. It can consume you, extort you, and convince you to do unspeakable things. It can turn your enemies into body heat, and your friends into the coats you steal from their backs. The cold does not live, but there can be no ridding yourself of it.
Dawsyn smacks her gloved hands against the nearest trunk and wills her fingers to feel. Beneath her breath, she murmurs her mantra. On the days she neglects to, the cold feels like a creature.
The cold is not alive.
Stay the frost.
Watch the Chasm.
It is a hum that lives within her. A proverb even. First, it was just a lesson in childhood, but now it is a code that keeps her among the living in a place meant for the dead.
“The Drop! It comes!”
Dawsyn looks skyward and sees it. White wings flap beneath the rolling cloud, a great wooden crate dangling from the talons below them.
She runs, her boots spraying snow. She hears many footfalls behind her, clawing at her. Unless she is fast, there will be nothing left in that wooden crate to reap.
From above, the two-winged creatures drop their burden and she watches as it falls into their midst, wood splintering in an ungodly crunch. The crate gives way, spilling its contents onto the snow. And the people…they swarm.
EXTRACT D
I initially considered writing a book about resilience for personal reasons. At the beginning of 2020 my fiftieth birthday lurked ominously around the corner. Meanwhile Sunday Night, the public affairs program I hosted for Channel 7, had just been cancelled and I’d begun to worry my future with 7 – the station that had been like a home to me for twenty-five years – might also be in doubt. On top of that my firstborn child was not only getting ready to leave the nest, he was getting ready to leave the country! As these cracks began to appear in my world I became anxious, melancholy and unsettled and, for the first time in my life, I had trouble sleeping.
Then the coronavirus pandemic hit and everything changed. Suddenly all of humanity – men, women and children alike – was feeling deeply uneasy and uncertain. Infection and death rates quickly soared; millions lost their jobs when businesses closed and entire countries were locked down. Economies sputtered, people were separated from loved ones and friends, and the nation’s mental health took a corresponding dive.
And yet… life went on. Sure enough I did lose my job at Channel 7, I did turn fifty and my son did eventually move to America to study. Against the depressing backdrop of a one-in-one-hundred-year global crisis these developments didn’t seem so bad after all.
Like everybody else, I tuned in to the news each day during 2020 with a sense of dread. I’d digest the statistics, absorb the health messaging and wonder how on earth society was going to come through the other side of the COVID crisis. I listened as people in government, the medical field and the mental health space explained that we were in uncharted waters, that there was no guidebook or policy blueprint when it came to a worldwide killer virus. While that was largely true, it occurred to me there were people we could turn to for wisdom in times like these. They were all around us. I’d even met plenty of them.
Over a quarter of a century in the news business, I’ve been privileged to interview thousands of people from all walks of life, including many who have survived calamity, suffered unspeakable trauma or lost everything they owned. Some were victims of crime or circumstance, others had their lives upended by twists of fate. However, one thing they almost always shared – and which constantly amazed me – was the strength and endurance of the human spirit. Some of these people have had a lasting impact on me and changed my outlook on life.
As natural as it is to feel apprehensive about the future nowadays, engaging again with these remarkable women and men has buoyed me during the most turbulent time I can remember. As difficult as their journeys have been, I’m grateful for their candour, their courage and their wisdom. I have learned a lot from them. I hope you will, too.