READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
The Ease I Feel
“And so the days pass. I keep waiting for something to happen, for the ease I feel to end.” These are the words that Claire Keegan gives to the narrator — a young Irish girl sent to live with distant relatives — in Foster. The girl is in the middle of a gaggle of siblings, and the reader guesses that it is the imminent arrival of yet another baby that prompts the girl’s migration from a chaotic home with hints of trouble to the tidy, childfree Kinsella home where she is told to “make [herself] at home.”
Taylor Swift Has Rocked My Psychiatric Practice
There was an essay in the NYT this week called “Taylor Swift Has Rocked My Psychiatric Practice.” In it, Dr. Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell describes the deluge of “What would Taylor Swift do?” queries that seem to have all of a sudden colored her practice. She doesn’t see this as a bad thing; quite the opposite, actually. “[Swift] says: Borrow my strength; embrace your pain; make something beautiful with it — and then you can shake it off.” (Side note: Can we all agree that incorporating Taylor lyrics into text is now passé?!)
