Bullet Holes In My Self Esteem
Why does heartbreak decimate self esteem? Where does shame sit in this pain? Can we heal from it instead of escaping its lessons?
Map Of Emotion
Navigating complex emotions of jealousy, ambition, insecurity, joy, fear, peace, anger, happiness, betrayal, contentment, disappointment, love.
What’s True Love Like In Isolation?
The most poignant events of our lives still leave an impact that only lasts a couple of years at most. What do we make of ‘true love’ which has a kind of endlessness?
People I Didn’t Want To Think About
The richness of women’s relationships with each other may be as much in the disrupted seeds as in the fruition.
2AM Lessons In Safety: The Insomnia Teacher
I woke up two nights ago, not knowing why I was awake. No sound had disturbed me, it wasn’t time to wake up.
2023: Comfort Is Served
We are all angry. Seething and out for blood. Where do we go from here? The pandemic has been the arsenic cherry on the difficult lessons of a decade.
Excruciating Intimacies: Navigating Through Poetry
It isn’t intimacy unless it feels a little tender.
BOOK: Home – Manju Kapur | Coming Back To Me
A lovely return to my late 20s where books absorbed me with a rigour I did not experience in my social or professional life.
Finding Myself In My Body: Reclaiming Pain
A house that is a warzone. A courtroom for custody battles. Dumping ground for other people’s pain. My body.
Sympathetic Losses & The Empathy Monster
I have poems by old lovers,
not about me
not the loves,
not the poetry.
Second COVID Stupid – Smooth Egg Brain
The second dark COVID of my soul is here except it doesn’t feel quite as dark. I feel stupid and it is peaceful.
Focaccia & Fortitude – Healing From Scratch
The world still doesn’t know how & why death shows up. How can there be any answer to why people turn out the way they do?
The Wealth Of Stories – #TodaysTale
Daily stories for wisdom & grace in the form of #TodaysTale
Evaporation – The Marie Kondo of COVID
I used to think fearlessness was a solid feeling. COVID made me think it is a void.
When Gods Become People
An ode to disappointing idols, to deified affections, to desecrated loyalties,
Autorickshaws & Poetry: Dignity In A Post COVID World
Finding poetry & gentleness in an angry post COVID world. I found dignity in an autorickshaw driver. And a poem.
Back To School
I started teaching an undergraduate course at a college that is allied with the one from where I graduated. I have taken exams in this very building. I’ve also represented another alma mater years later in a college festival and performed on the stage of this one. Now, I take…
Checklist Of Closures
2022 feels like a checklist of long pending accounts being closed. The year began completely wrenched out of my control. Ignoring my qualms about a new variant & their lingering health issues, my familiy insisted on traveling in the first week of January. They returned with COVID. For years now,…
Body & Sex | Culture | Home & Identity | Map Of Emotion | People & Relationships | Politics & Feminism
What Do We Owe Each Other In Shifting Normals?
After I wrote yesterday’s fan post about And Just Like That, I stayed up late reading reviews & the subreddit of the show. Well. There is so much vitriol. I believe most of it is the punishment our overly capitalist world is wrecking on anyone who hasn’t paid the requisite…
Lesson
My friend Saurabh referenced the idea that when the student is ready, the teacher arrives. He said when the teacher is ready too, the student arrives. I think student, teacher, lesson, these are all part of something more complex and yes, when they intersect it feels dramatic because it’s a…
A Year Of Lonely Love & Communal Grief
For JD It’s coming on an year since our last conversation. A week when we were negotiating our definitions of intimacy, proximity, boundaries & identity. Sadly, I don’t even have the records of that any more. My phone crashed abruptly, last month. This is the same phone that you helped…