“On September 11th 2001, my life shattered. After my brother’s death in a plane crash, I was unable to continue to do anything creative or, in fact, anything. After years of relentless grief and depression, I found a wonderful art therapist who introduced me to new creative ways to "tell my story." With her help, I finally discovered a way to express the inexpressible sorrow in my losses. To speak the unspeakable about depression, grief, loss and the odyssey back to really living my life again. This book, both images and text, were my way out. It became a patchwork quilt describing my life. Somehow, once I had transcribed it, and felt it fully to my bones, I could go on.”
Julia Caswell Daitch is an architect
in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area.
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By blankmw
Oct 15, 2009
"Not to Worry, I'm Just Collateral Damage" An Extraordinarily Engrossing and Riveting Work of Art! This book provides an unprecedented look inside the author’s soul. The collage-like combination of the author’s artwork, architecture, family photos, autobiographical narrative and intimate personal insights, weave together to draw the reader into the mind and soul of the artist in a way that I’ve never experienced before “reading” this book. But one doesn’t really “read” this book in the conventional sense. You really sometimes need to stop....to cry, to reflect on your own life, to take in the almost unimaginable hurt and anguish the author conveys, to imagine the magnitude of loss multiplied by the number of people killed in just that one horrible day....and grown exponentially by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan since. But, please, PLEASE, heed the author’s opening caveats. This is no a book for the faint of heart. This is not a coffee table book. Don’t read this... More > book if you’re looking for a “summer read”. DO NOT SKIM! DO NOT FLIP THROUGH to look at the "pictures". And read (slowly) front to back. Cover to cover. Perhaps because I live in New York and myself watched the second Twin Tower fall from the roof of my building, or perhaps because the author is a cherished friend that I spent considerable time with during her formative years during and immediately after architecture school, or both, this book hit me squarely in the gut. I was affected in ways I haven’t before by a book. Sometimes I felt like a voyeur, like I was peeping inside of someone’s diary and really shouldn’t be there. Sometimes I felt like I had literally slipped into the author’s soul like a skin, seeing someone else’s pain and anguish through their eyes. Sometimes I felt a collective, indignant anger at the avoidable and unnecessary losses experienced by all innocents in this world. And sometimes I couldn’t help looking at and essentially re-living each of the significant losses I’ve experienced during my own life. This is a work about loss, at many, many levels. This is a work about how loss can sometimes not just be an unfortunate event or setback one experiences, but, a force that literally changes who we are, that molds our reality and our character. This book is about how loss sometimes cannot be escaped or minimized or extinguished, but, rather, must be gone through like clearing a path through a thick jungle, a fight for one’s very life, and lingers forever like a scar. Perhaps fading, but, permanent. Like a scar. Much more than a memory. But, mostly, this book is about love and survival. Not some cheery, pleasant, happy-ending renewal, or clean and crisp rebirth. But love, openness, honesty and survival. Crawling back to some sense of normalcy. Prevailing amidst and despite the dust....learning to live among the ashes.< Less
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