I last finished an essay before Christmas, 2022, and I don’t think I captured what I wanted to say about the current moment we’re all living in. I wanted to write about how I emerged from the rubble of lockdown and personal crisis and felt certain aspects of my old life chafing. I wanted toContinueContinue reading “Learning to Make Fire”
Tag Archives: COVID-19
The Shiny Season
How do we conceive of the fact that whole swaths of society are still grappling with a stress event so severe that our hair fell out? … That hundreds of thousands of people are still dealing with the effects of a virus that, in its acute form, turns the body on itself — and soContinueContinue reading “The Shiny Season”
Healing is Hard Part 2: Doing The Work
“You’re doing the work.” My therapist said this to me recently. I’ve heard this from therapists before. It’s a phrase that’s both flattering and irritating in its vagueness. What is “the work?” Why am I doing it? And how long do I have to keep it up? I’ve been in and out of therapy sinceContinueContinue reading “Healing is Hard Part 2: Doing The Work“
The Cardinal And The Storm
CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNING: References to chronic illness, self-harm, and depression/anxiety. I’m lying on the couch listening to the icy February rain slide down my living room window. Dizzy, nauseated, and suffering from a severe migraine, I can’t concentrate on anything other than its excruciating pain. It feels like ice picks digging behind my eye sockets combinedContinueContinue reading “The Cardinal And The Storm”
Breaking Is Easy. Healing is Harder.
CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNING: Reproductive justice issues including miscarriage and stillbirth and abortion rights, COVID-19, mentions of suicide and suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, and thoughts of self-harm. “Just tighten your shoulders..just clench your jaw ’til you frown. Just don’t let go ’cause you may drown.” Rent, book by Jonathan Larson. The skylight in the living room ofContinueContinue reading “Breaking Is Easy. Healing is Harder.”
The Time Traveling Sweatshirt: A Pandemic Carol
“Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.” Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix My grey Star Wars sweatshirt lay unassumingly on top of my boyfriend’s bed, wrinkled and unremarkable. And yet, the sight of it caused me to stopContinueContinue reading “The Time Traveling Sweatshirt: A Pandemic Carol”
The Long Pause
But the main reason I struggled to write lately is I finally realized one of my fatal flaws as a writer: I’m overly fond of a neat ending. I love to put a bow on things. I love a pithy last line. And the story I’m in, that we’re all in, will not enjoy a neat ending.
Natalie Bograd 