Most people I knew were quite invested in my happiness. So much so, that I lived in fear of disappointing them. Read more
Happiness Sounds A Lot Like A Lie
memoir
The Heavenly Torture Of Grief, Of Winter, The Bulb Before The Tulip
It’s the time of year when the weather acts like a Philip Glass score. The body can’t get enough of the mikva of hot water, and we turn inwards. “What day is it?” one of my students asked in class last week, twirling his pencil. “The 87th of January,” another quipped back, without looking up. Read more
A Portrait Of The Self As Self
It’s challenging, isn’t it? The way we come face-to-face with the things we’d like to leave in the last calendar year, the things we expect ourselves to be able to cleanly cut away from just because we scrawled that we would in 2019? Read more
What Happens Next: When The Specters Of Mental And Physical Illness Collide
Now I believe that everything will somehow be okay, that the world will carry me along instead of passing me by. Read more
‘The Haunting Of Hill House’ Brought Back Ghosts Of My Sister’s Death
Living a life damaged by grief is something I understand well. When I was eleven, my sister died. I usually just tell people that she died in a car accident, which is sort of true, but really, she drowned. It happened in Colorado, during the spring thaw when the melting snow on the mountain peaks turns peaceful, meandering rivers into dark, raging torrents. Read more
My Disability Story Isn’t For Your Catharsis
Memoirs of disability are often studies in suffering. But what I’ve found in my research is that normate readers don’t actually want to read stories of suffering—not by itself, at least. They want suffering-plus. They want some form of Aristotelian catharsis—a release. Read more
Amnesia And Other Gifts
My fascinating if mildly morbid research started because I couldn’t remember having sex with my ex boyfriend. It was as though someone had come in with kindergarten scissors and started sloppily snipping those memories away. Read more
Dear Anyone Who Is Listening
I was taken to a children’s home and, screaming, dunked into a bathtub of ice water. Read more
I Convinced Myself I Wasn’t A Lesbian
‘I had decided that I would shut out everybody before anybody alienated me.’ Read more
‘This Too Shall Pass’ And Other Christmas Miracles
Christmas ghosts complicate my time. They remind me things are not linear; time is tangled, circuitous; you can travel to any point in your life and wander a while. Read more