I spent the last day of the year walking through a pine forest and a field, a clearing at Daniel’s Peace Memorial Park. It’s a lovely place, imbued with love and pain and magic. When I say that I felt held by a place, I mean just that — I felt held. I felt seen, [...]
Category: My Writing
On crying at the ballet
I want to write everyday because how else will I notice – and remember – how certain moments felt? Those glimpses of clarity, those realizations? I can tell you how it felt to watch The Nutcracker ballet, the dimming audience lights giving way to a cozy, illuminated house with gently falling snow. The sounds of [...]
New essay, “Grief Work,” up now at VIDA Review
I'm so happy to share that my essay "Grief Work" is finally alive in the world on VIDA Review. This essay was a tough one to write. It was a joy to think about, though, and I did think about it for almost three years. I went through draft after draft. I workshopped it in [...]
What happens when we ask why?
Humans spend so much time creating narratives, wanting to string together disparate events into something concrete, something patterned. Story: we crave it. We weave a tale out of bits of information. It’s a kind of electrifying alchemy, to feel as though you’re inside your own real-world choose-your-own-adventure. Does the story we build make us feel important? Does it make us feel like we’re in control? Does it give us a sense of confidence, teach us how to navigate the world better?
New essay up at Pigeon Pages: “Roadmap to a Fire”
"What happens when we juxtapose? Do the unrelated become related based on their placement? Do they share energy, tossing it back and forth, creating a link where one didn’t exist before? I sat at the bottom of the stairs for a while and stared at my hands. I couldn’t remember the last time he told [...]
I have a new essay up at one of my dream pubs
Let me get this out of the way: I'm really not a cool kid, so I'm just going to let the awkward fangirl in me hang out. I love Catapult literary magazine, and pretty much all of the work they're doing, honestly. The writing is diverse, engaging, and spans a variety of perspectives and topics. [...]
A tripped wire in the universe
"All I wanted was for the summer — that terrible season of loss — to end."
A few notes on gratitude & the holidays
Love and thankfulness start in the kitchen. The Italian parsley drying on the sink. A half lemon left over from dressing the food. A bulb of garlic, inquiring eyes, and finally, a beautiful bird prepared by my mother.
A letter on grief to my dead brother
I had to call our mother To tell her you died. She wasn’t responding to my texts or calls So I had to call the nursing home where she worked And have the nurse’s desk page her. What’s going on, she asked immediately. I told her to sit down. She said Just tell me. I said [...]
What to do when the news makes you feel like a human ashtray
I never realized how much we take the absence of pain for granted. Instead, we cite boredom, general malaise, and complaint rather than sheer gratitude for the stardust shooting through our bodies, for those perfect moments when speck and cell align, humming, harmonious. We've got to be grateful at the cellular level. We've got to [...]
ashley bethard 