The quiet moments where I’m trying to find myself Do you do something for fun? I used to do a lot of things for fun. Womanhood, adulting, motherhood, and the pace of our current world has made that harder and harder. Not to mention the constant chatter about doing things to be “productive.” I have…
Maybe I’ll just sleep… I try not to talk. I take in the smell. I hear the rain sounds layered with instrumental music in the background. I feel the table creak as they move around me. I hear their breath and try not to feel weird about it. I drift in and out of sleep.…
Notes on medical misogyny There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being right. Not the satisfaction of it. The exhaustion of it. The weight of having to prove, repeatedly, to people with medical degrees and institutional authority, that something is wrong. And that wrong thing deserves to be made right. I have…
On bodies, borders, and the price of care that never appears on a bill I have a complicated body. I always have. Autoimmune thyroid disease. Gastroparesis. Celiac. PCOS. Neurodivergent. Most of it present from birth. Most of it diagnosed before I was twenty-five. I’m in my 40s now. Which means I’ve spent nearly two decades…
On the little joys and being content The line moves in small shuffles. Carts bump forward, rubber wheels ticking over the seam in the concrete. Someone ahead is balancing a forty-pack of sparkling water on the edge of their cart like it might make a break for it. At the exit, the receipt checker stands…
A Texan, a Canadian winter, and the slow work of belonging I have lived in Texas. I have lived in the Swiss Alps. I have, on multiple occasions, considered myself a person who understands weather. I was wrong. Texas weather is a threat. It comes at you like a reality TV villain. All dramatic, loud,…
On care, compensation, and the invisible scaffolding of everything At the beginning of that first council meeting I attended, before the zoning debates and procedural votes, there was a conversation about salary. About whether councillors are paid enough. About if their work is part-time. About optics. About public perception. About whether asking for more feels…
On showing up… I almost didn’t go. There is always a reason not to go. The dishes. The weather. The certainty that someone more qualified will speak. I’d been following the story for weeks. Cambridge, Ontario city council was moving to reverse a tax related to the ION light rail. It was a decision I…
A seven-year-old already knows what most adults won’t admit. My daughter is seven, which is the age of questions. They often arrive fully formed, slightly dangerous, and often bigger than they seem on the surface. The other night, after a movie she came in and asked, “Mama, why do all the evil people become good…
On fatigue, fat bodies, and moral judgment I’ve been tired for as long as I can remember. Not the kind of tired that comes from late nights or early mornings. The kind that sent me to bed early as a child. The kind that let me sleep anywhere that felt safe in my youth. The…