I have always wanted for my research to create something beautiful, and now, placing our trust in each other, nine families of children with shortened and important lives and I have committed to doing so together. But to do so, we need a broader community to join us. So we are asking for you to accompany us.
That we might survive
For much of my life, my body has not felt like my own. So this week, when American women’s bodily autonomy has not yet been taken (and it is critical to remember not yet) but lies on the precipice of very soon being taken from us, I have this sense that I cannot remain quietContinue reading "That we might survive"
To train yourself, or how I manage to do ‘this work’
The most frequent and usually very first question I receive is how I manage to cope with something so sad, how I take care of myself through what is imagined to be fully painful and nothing else...but to do this work requires a different, much grittier and far less delineable praxis than a simple set of self care techniques.
On your birthday
Could there not be something different possible, if we were to stand openly in our messy now, full of unexpected sunlight, tight hugs around tears, simultaneous wishing and steady understanding?
to be willing, or, the gorgeous responsibility of making space for hope
Hope has been on my mind. Hope has been a part of my family for a long time. I hold vivid memories of days in college when my mother and I cared for her father, my grandfather, as he died, and took turns reading Jane Goodall’s ‘Reason For Hope’ out loud to him, and toContinue reading "to be willing, or, the gorgeous responsibility of making space for hope"
From Martyrdom to Creativity: Embracing Wholeness and Magic
The thing is, the more I’ve built my work, and therefore my life and sense of self and worth, on a foundation of martyrdom, the more I have placed my identity and self-worth in opposition to my pursuit of joy, of inspiration, curiosity, openness, and light. I have placed it in opposition to creativity. I want to see what happens, who I become and what I could create, when I embrace wholeness and joy and stepping into life as me, a creative person. I do so asking what it might look like to stand still and stop the sun and attempting for my daily life to be a curious enactment of the answer.
all the truth
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Emily Dickinson (1263) I thought I had done this. Thought I’d put it all on the page. Thought I’d written to the edge, from the edge, over the edge looking up. Turned your name every which way, standing guard over my grief. Wrote letters in thatContinue reading "all the truth"
boarding gate
I have a ritual in airports, and it’s been nearly 20 months since I last enacted it. This time the ritual includes a mask and hand sanitizer and Covid tests and a little less peace, but all the same it feels like a comfortable home to be back in my flying skin. In my ritual,Continue reading "boarding gate"
The ‘Point’, or How I Wound Up Starting a PhD by Declaring “I Don’t Know”
Had you asked me in high school, at any point in college, before my master’s, even after my master’s, I would have said that I would be the last person here, finishing day 7 of a PhD. So how did I end up here? And what is the point?
Naming Our Losses
According to one perspective of time, transition is upon us. There is one day left of the year 2020. I’ve always resisted the pressure, to put too much weight into the passing of a new year. But in this moment, that urgency for sudden newness at 12:00AM on the first of January, 2021, is fierceContinue reading "Naming Our Losses"
It’s time to talk to your people.
...as we all look at this growing surge, our eyes open to the possibility that someone we love may die, it’s time for us to talk to our friends about how they can love us through it.
Expanding Our Knowledge: Why I’m starting a PhD and how you can join me
...palliative and hospice care for children are slowly developing outside of the US and UK and in resource-limited settings. As they develop, it’s critical we understand from the communities experiencing and surviving the death of a child what death means to them, how dying enters their lives, how the story of death and dying is told, who they need to be in the dying process, what surviving well includes, and what the good death looks like.
Inviting Discomfort to the Table
...what if, instead, we cultivated zones of discomfort within ourselves? What if rather than force ourselves into places outside of our comfort, we welcomed, invited discomfort into our comfortable spaces, into ourselves?
the privilege of wildness
No good intentions, no unequal power dynamics, no presumed unity of womanhood should wash out our unique wonders, unique weirdness, unique wildness.
Night watch.
...why weren’t we awake before they made it to the water?
unlearning grace
When I was a dancer, grace was a large part of my life. Then, grace was about making your extreme physical exertion appear as if a feather was moving lightly through air. Making your effort look effortless. Your pain invisible. Part of me wishes I had never learned that form of grace, that supposed gracefulness. Part of me is grateful for what I’ve gained in the process of unlearning it.
for Kamo
Someone said to me this week “sometimes abandoning your child is the greatest act of love,” about a child named Kamo, who was neglected and then abandoned six years ago and just returned to the mother who left him, right as he nears the end of his life. It’s a notion I’ve wondered on sinceContinue reading "for Kamo"
What brought you to here?
In six days, I’ll be on a plane over the ocean. In a week, I’ll have landed into my first day in London. Where I’m moving. To attend graduate school. None of this is quite believable. My to-do list [should be] a mile long. My packing list even longer, though [should be] only long enoughContinue reading "What brought you to here?"
I feel her in the maybe
What if we let others walk with us, even if from a distance? What if we let our complexity shine out, rather than close off and cage us? What if we stood in our reality, and let it be? I think that's what she would have done. So what if I said: my mother, the human who shaped and grew me, died two and a half months ago and this is what was in me in the before, during, and after?
Things That Appear Broken But Upon Closer Inspection Are Beautiful
In the midst of many movements, physical and figurative and of the soul, words I once wrote have a way of coming back around: 11 November 2014 Things That Appear Broken But Upon Closer Inspection Are Beautiful A slight glint of the equator peeks through the rust on the dilapidated gurney. Soft eyelashes continuing toContinue reading "Things That Appear Broken But Upon Closer Inspection Are Beautiful"
callie daniels-howell 