ICYMI: I wrote about the childcare I can’t afford for Vogue. Also I wrote about Britney Spears telling her own abortion story, on her own terms, for Romper. Also you should buy my book for someone who might need it, or just if you feel like you need a very tight squeeze, or a kiss on your forehead.
And something I know you haven’t missed, before we begin: please take a moment call and/or email your reps in Congress—and also the curséd White House comment line voicemail—to beg for/plead for/demand a ceasefire in Gaza, where pregnant Palestinians are—as we speak, 150 of them every 24 hours—giving birth and undergoing c-sections without anesthesia or electricity or food or water. Children are being treated for white phosphorus burns with no morphine. This is all reproductive violence on a scale I can’t fathom. It is all too horrific to bear and yet we must be part of bearing it, in order to face it and learn it and (please God) stop it.
Okay. Unclench your beautiful jaw now, please. Let’s get into it.
I am, like you are, probably, operating from a baseline of agony these days. Much of what composes that agony is rage, and disbelief, and fear. But some of what’s gnashing its teeth in there, what’s flailing desperately, what’s laying face-down on the floor in abject despair, is also love. Sharp love. Warmth-suddenly-flooding-my-whole-body love. New layers upon old love. The heartsickness of being deeply, helplessly, in love.
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