Full Description
A candid and cathartic exploration of pandemic life, from family to pop culture to healthcare—and beyond
At a time when so many are dealing with collective and personal grief, award-winning author and journalist Michele Weldon's new collection of essays navigates the revelatory and upending nature of this extraordinary pandemic era through a lens of love and connection. Weldon explores pain and pleasure alike with emotional texture, empathy, wisdom, vulnerability, and humor. She interrogates moments of joy, despair, and triumph, offering readers the possibility for a richly cathartic experience. With honesty and agility, Weldon creates poignant intersections of her narrative with popular culture, history, media, news, consumerism, family traditions, and healthcare. Employing honest and daring language, Weldon examines the concepts of safety, importance of beloved objects, power of words, shift to remote relationships, concepts of feminism, betrayal of public lies, and more. Ultimately, with grace and heart, Weldon offers in these essays useful pathways toward framing this swath of time so that we might arrive at a sense of understanding, belonging, and peace with our new realities.
Contents
Introduction
Part One: Persons
Chapter 1: Caption Writer
Chapter 2: Children
Chapter 3: Positive Patients
Chapter 4: Old Ladies
Chapter 5: Feminists
Chapter 6: Partners
Chapter 7: Classmates
Chapter 8: Liars
Part Two: Places
Chapter 9: Latin Class
Chapter 10: Lakefront
Chapter 11: Kitchens
Chapter 12: Physical Therapy
Chapter 13: ICU
Chapter 14: Shame
Chapter 15: Zoom
Chapter 16: Within
Part Three: Things
Chapter 17: Pink Couches
Chapter 18: Watches
Chapter 19: Nicknames
Chapter 20: Shoes
Chapter 21: Sounds
Chapter 22: Soup
Chapter 23: Blue
Chapter 24: Breath
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Credits
