Note from the Editor - Update on 2021 Volume II

How does the toll of your illness/disability manifest - financially, emotionally, physically, psychologically? What role does creativity play in how you encounter those tolls? How can you mitigate the impact?

How do you view your illness/disability? What do you receive from your circumstances? Are you able to accept the gifts of life, even amid hardship and pain?

Excerpt:

I want to get on my knees when I pray.

Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?

Kneel down and worship the awe of possibility….

Where does faith show up in your body, if at all? How do you reconcile belief in the possibility of health versus your lived experience with illness? In what way(s) does hope impact your day-to-day life?

The Bi-lo witch lived between cracks of root, black concrete, and soil below a massive dying oak…

It came like blight on a willow tree. A kind of slow, insidious sorcery. Spreading from trunk to branches to leaves….

I am looking out across the expanse of a parking lot at a small green hill with towering oak trees, whose leaves are glinting gold in the late morning sun…

So here we are on our journey of definition by elimination. COVID-19 is not a national identity. It is not a simple religious awakening. Nor is it, as some might be tempted to argue …

Over this past year sometimes when I take a deep breath in it gets caught in my throat. I try to force it through my trachea and a trickle of oxygen reaches my lungs. It’s not enough. In my panic I’m taken back to a year long forgotten. Lying on the cold concrete of a hospital parking garage struggling to breathe…

How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted your way of life? How has the effect of chronic illness prepared you for the uncertainty of life at the moment? Who are the angels you see? How are you having faith and holding hope?

The road is long. A torsion of relentless uncertainty. Unpaved and rugged. I have no shoes…

The coolness of the water electrifies my nerves. It’s not particularly cold, but any change in temperature, hot or not, shocks my system to a sharp ache. I push through, tip toe over the sand and rocks closer to open water. ..

The wind is harsh and unforgiving this high up the mountain. I come on weekday mornings, so the powder is fresh and the corduroy pristine from the pre-open rake. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to the divine…

As I walked into the brilliant, almost distressing sunlight, with its intense golden yellows and effulgent oranges, I squinted my eyes so quickly I winced as they shut…

How do you reconcile who you are and what you have? How do you overcome feelings of shame? How has having a disease impacted how you show and receive love? What were the parts of yourself hidden behind health and how have they changed you for the better?