Category: Emotional Health
They Don’t Tell You That You Can Never Leave
It doesn’t take much to set that feeling off in me—racing heart, the inability to settle my hands if I try to type. I no longer experience a temptation to raise my voice as I once did, though sometimes—like today—when my body gets that jittery feeling that adrenalin or cortisol Read more
Creatures of Habit
I remember with clarity the last time I saw my grandmother. As I recall, I stood on her doorstep, staring through the stained-glass door as her small frame moved inside. She was smaller, greyer, glassier in the eye, and as I also saw, annoyed by my arrival. She opened the Read more
Waiting to Be Born
On a blank wall a purple line rises and falls as the painter walks alone, can in hand, heart fast, breath shallow, hopes high. The line will soon disappear at the hand of another painter, hired to cover this expression of joy, as it will be thought of by the Read more
Notes from the Patriarchy – Excerpts
There are no secrets. It’s just that many do not see the obvious. I hate it when people deny the obvious. Sometimes I hate the obvious, too. And here I am with my flashlight. Not flood lights. Not even a torch. Day after day we stumble around cloaked in insignificance, Read more
The Undeserving
Survive; Survivor; Survived. What does it mean? Is it what they survived? Or what we survived? What I survived? That’s definable – the ‘what’; Danger, violence, terror. The suffocating distress of it. But what does surviving look like? Is it still being alive? Is it still carrying on? Is it Read more
The Four Deaths of James Edward
I. James Edward the Third entered the world like a limp bruise—purple against the sterile room—in a silence that hurt my ears from straining, stretching and stretching, taking with it his brain cells and future. Some of you will know what I mean. I’m sorry for that. The only thing Read more
Everything Bathed in Gold
It’s a Tuesday evening, and I’ve just returned from therapy. I pour a glass of wine before gathering the ingredients for dinner: six shallots, garlic, half a can of tomato paste, anchovies, and pasta. Outside, my neighbor who lives in the building behind mine pulls into the shared parking lot. Read more