Here, in Hawaii, there are no hurricane shutters to protect you. Here, in Hawai‘i, you’re more likely to nail plywood to your window frames than utter the word shutter.

It’s a “Super El Niño” year, which means we could see at least a dozen storms develop in the Pacific Ocean and threaten the Hawaiian Island chain. I’ve lived here on Oahu for 17 years and have never experienced such a potent summer: rainy, humid, relentless heat. But I grew up in Boca Raton, which translates from Spanish to mouse’s mouth. According to the Boca Raton Historical Society, it is also “a navigational term referring to a rocky or jagged inlet.” Hurricane season was part of the blood and muscle of my adolescence. Apocalyptic scenes of power lines strewn across streets, traffic lights hung like threads, houses missing walls and roofs, and dead animals were all normal, after the storm’s cone left the peninsula, only to disperse and leave the land and the people broken.

I’ve tried to write about storms before. Not the kind that rip infrastructure into shreds, but the internal storms that make poetry worth writing and pottery worth making. I read an amazing short story by Karen Russell earlier this summer from her book, Orange World and other Stories about a tornado farmer. In “The Tornado Auction” we meet a widowed Mr. Robert Wurman from Gosper County, Nebraska, who is now retired from the tornado business. He used to raise tornados from babies for the purpose of “demolition”. “My twisters have felled fire-damage silos and bankrupt casinos, foundering Chick-N-Shacks and neglected libraries” (116). Wurman is prideful of his past work, and after knowingly buying a “bad” tornado at an auction for an exorbitant amount of money, he tries to prove to himself and his adult kids, that he can still create something. Spoiler alert: Wurman releases this crazy tornado from his barn, knowing it could wipe out his entire town. He watches it rip through meadows and fields while he ruminates on his life. The End.

As a fellow Florida native, I think Russell knows how to expertly tap into the world of external and internal violence. I’m thinking of the original Florida man, not as a trope/meme, but as my elementary school bus driver, Joe, who lost most of his fingers in either the Vietnam War or wrestling an alligator. It was unclear. Joe got a real kick out of showing us kids the nubs where his fingers once were.

When I google “the original Florida Man” I find the most viral moments:

• The Strip Club Cat Riot (June 2012): “Florida man arrested for calling 911 after kitten denied entry into strip club.”

• The Accidental Self-Report (February 2013): “Florida man arrested after pocket dialing 911 and discussing plans to kill someone.”

• The Time Traveler (Early Trend): “Florida man arrested for crashing car into a mall; says he was trying to time travel.”

I mean, who doesn’t bring their kitty to the strip club? And it sounds like the Florida man who confessed to planning a murder to 911 was just crying out for help, right? Don’t even get me started on time travel! Of course the mall is the portal to breaking the time-space continuum!

I also think of the guy who got butt-injections, but instead of pumping fat into those buns, the “doctor” injected cement into his body. Known as the “Toxic Tush” scandal of 2011, a South Florida woman named Oneal Ron Morris fooled a whole bunch of flat-butted folks, posing as a plastic surgeon with no medical training whatsoever. Morris was accused of pretending to be a doctor and illegally injecting a mixture of cement, caulk, flat-tire sealant, mineral oil and glue into her patients’ undersides. One of her “clients”, who authorities say paid Morris $2,000 for as many as 10 injections over three years, died. The End.

I got hooked on Russell’s writing after her debut novel Swamplandia! was published in 2011. I grew up half a mile from the Everglades, and I could appreciate the way her characterizations of Florida men and women felt both surreal and ordinary. Somewhere between the theme park and the swamp is the truth about life and unseen grief: mothers die, thirteen-year-olds wrestle alligators, girls fall in love with ghosts, fathers abandon their children, and islands sink. If you’ve ever seen the HBO show It’s Florida, Man, then you know what I’m talking about. Swamplandia! isn’t that far off from real life.

I’m tracking the storms that are on their way, forming off Mexico, heading west. People on Hawai‘i Island, especially in rural Kaʻū, still don’t have power after last weekend’s tropical storm Lala. Lots of folks are isolated without any supplies. A cemetery in Nāʻālehu unearthed the dead, headstones scattered like sticks. Where do the families of the washed away remains go to grieve? How will the iwi kupuna (ancestral remains) rest again? The scene is brutally surreal; the fourth wall has been broken and there is no difference here between death and living. This is the wisdom of grief you can see.

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida. 65 people died, some were washed out to sea. Some fell victim to the tornadoes that formed after the hurricane came through. Andrew blew the roof off my uncle’s home in Miami. He talked about how his family huddled against the one wall left standing. At that time I was only 9-years-old. We had just gotten hurricane shutters installed for the first time. The night before my mom gave me an unfortunate, lopsided haircut. All I remember is wondering what was going on out there while we were hunkered down in the dark. If the hurricane could see me, would he make fun of my hair? Would there be a a pile of cats, tall as hedge, dead but still purring in our driveway? Would our crazy next door neighbor use his chainsaw to rescue us all from all the fallen trees? Or would he murder us for the heck of it (finally, a joke that came true)?

Robert Wurman, after realizing the tornado he bought wasn’t in fact a dud, but a powerful funnel, asked himself, “How had I survived the peace and quiet?” Many years had gone by since he last raised a tornado. His wife died. His kids moved away. He isolated himself from his friends and neighbors.

All I know is that when I was looking out at the Ko‘olau Mountains while Lala grazed the eastern edge of Oahu, I saw a piece of the mountain crumbling to the ground and rushing out to the ocean like glacier calving. Goats were caught in the rocks, wild boars clung to the peeling bark of guava trees. But there was no post-fracture “boom,” no audio evidence of the earth’s broken heart. I watched the real and imagined mock orange blooms float through the air like snow, thinking where will they go now? Maybe storm season isn’t really seasonal, and survival isn’t really living. There is grief in the silence between what you imagine gets thrown at your window and everything else you can’t see.

“The names we give ourselves are a powerful form of self-determination, of declaring ourselves sovereign territory.”

—Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss (3)

1.

It’s about 6am on Wednesday, and I’ve just returned from a two week trip to North Carolina to meet my baby nephew, Rory. I’m outside on our back lanai, trying to catch up on emails, but I feel the pull to write about trees. My children aren’t going to school today, and I’ve already been interrupted by their wants and needs. My dog, too, needs me. He stares at me, whines, then goes back to sleep.

I am trying to listen to the mynah birds. I’m eager to hear their gossip. What did I miss while I was away? The wind and rain? The pineapple I planted last year, starting to sprout? Gertrude, our chicken named after the poet Gertrude Stein, hiding under the Mock Orange hedge, waiting impatiently for a papaya to fall from what she must think is the sky?

I can’t help but compare the scenery of both places—my sister lives in Waynesville, a small mountain town outside of the more well-known city of Asheville, North Carolina, lined with Tulip Poplars and Sweetgum. We also spent time in Chapel Hill, marveling at the way people live in cities that are also forests, and how incorporating nature into daily life, like here in Hawai‘i, is part of the landscape.

I’ve come back to our plumeria tree in full neon pink bloom. The Areca palm’s fronds hang over the deck railing like my daughter’s sleepy arms over the side of her bed. My neighbor’s manila palms act as a barrier between our houses, but they’ve crept over too as neighbors often do. I can hear the ocean whirring from my writing chair, an old wicker seat, weathered by rain and salt air.

I gaze out at the coconut palms we planted 12 years ago, one with its first coconut. The other tree’s heart has died and its trunk fibers are starting to turn brown, decay. The palms here on Oahu are being destroyed by the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle, a large, horned invasive bug native to Southeast Asia. Once healthy, towering palm trees lining the beach now look like decapitated ghosts. They dot the coast with their stick torsos, magnificently tall and bare.

In North Carolina there are Red Maples, White Oak, and Flowering Dogwood—trees I only imagined as a child growing up in swamplands of South Florida. The lawns where my sister, Debra, and her husband, James, live are neatly manicured, like oil paintings you’d find at an ambiguously curated estate sale. From Chapel Hill, the coast is a day-trip. Debra says there are barely any trees by the beach, but when I look it up, I find that Carolina State Park is where visitors can walk through the native Venus Flytraps, wild Ginseng, and Pine Straw—all illegal to poach, making them more irresistible to thieves.

Debra and I grew up half a mile from the Everglades, a nearly 2 million acre National Park, collecting mangrove seeds and small bromeliads. Dragonflies, mosquitos, palmetto bugs, alligators, and water moccasins were not the imaginary creatures of our youth—they lived alongside us on farmland that quickly developed into a bustling suburb. The insects nightmarishly buzzed year-long, and the reptiles crept into neighbor’s homes. One of my elementary school classmates was grabbed by a gator in his backyard and eaten alive.

*

I only brought one book with me on our trip to North Carolina, Gathering Moss, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The book is comprised of a collection of essays that explore the relationship between humans and nature, but it’s also a book about survival. For this trip across the Pacific Ocean, I thought it would be appropriate to think about something as small and life-affirming as moss. After all, my husband, two kids, and I were traveling to the eastern side of the continent to meet a tiny baby, born at 26 weeks, almost 3 months too soon. This baby, my nephew, is now a blue-eyed 9-month old boy, smiling, laughing, and safe in his family’s presence. Rory is a miracle.

Just a few weeks before Rory was born, Debra and James were married on a Florida beach less than 20 miles from where we grew up. My husband officiated, his sweet speech drowned out by the late afternoon waves. Between the sidewalk and sand I noticed the Sea Grapes and Coral Beans, an occasional Sword Fern and Blue Porterweed. The heat of July was quelled by ocean wind, but the air was so thick you could feel it curl around your throat. After the wedding, my family and I flew back to Hawai‘i, while my sister and new brother-in-law went back to North Carolina.

It was only week or so after settling back into my routine that I got a text from Debra. I’m at the ER. Call me. I was busy swimming with my family in the rain—monk seals bobbed behind us like large buoys while the sun broke through the clouds like a fist, spreading gold dust over the Pacific and the Waianae Mountains. By the time I could get to my phone, Debra was admitted to the hospital with a severe case of preeclampsia. She told me she didn’t want to die. She repeated, tell the nurses to save me. A couple of days later, Rory was born, weighing less than 2 lbs. My sister and her son, bonded by their beautiful broken bodies, were going to survive.

I wonder, who will Rory be after such a traumatic entrance into this world? Like the Mimosa pudica, or more commonly called the “Touch Me Not” plant, will he curl up when embraced? He fought in the NICU for 184 days before Debra and James could take him home. He is fed through a G-tube, but makes cues that let us know he can’t wait to digest everything around him. The morning sun across the Smokies, the towering Ash and Pines, the strawberries growing in long, wild fields—all wait for him to him to explore.

In Gathering Moss, Kimmerer gives us the lens to make sense of human identity through her research and observations of moss. Kimmerer asks, “Outside the circle, scientific names for mosses may suffice, but within the circle, what do they call themselves?” suggesting that, like the human world, naming depends on the perspective of both “self” and “other.” When identity is informed within a group, a more intimate understanding of who we are exists. My sister did not think of herself as a mother and James did not think of himself as a father until the nurses and doctors huddled around them after surgery, smiling, good job, mama, good job, dad. Rory will not think of himself as a NICU baby until he hears his birth story. We call him a fighter and a survivor, and he will carry those names throughout his life until they no longer serve him.

2.

For the better part of the past 6 months I’ve been on my own identity-journey into the scientific, medical and personal. I guess it started even earlier, about 15 years go, when I experienced severe vertigo. It was 2011 and I was in the midst of studying for my PhD exams and teaching English at the University of Hawai‘i. One day I woke up and felt like I was inside the worst acid trip of my life. I would have thought that my college days prepared me for this moment, but nothing came close to this particular feeling. It was like my physical body was somewhere in a forest and my brain was stuck at sea.

It was early in the morning on a regular weekday when I tried to get into the car to drive to the university for a class, but I couldn’t. The walls, the roads, and even the sky blew around me like flags making waves with the wind. My boyfriend at the time, Evan (my now-husband), took me to the ER. We passed bright bougainvilleas, purples and pinks that flashed like Christmas lights as we sped down the H-1. Their thorns appeared enlarged, like fingers pointing in a myriad of directions, whispering, this way—a cruel trick, even for a shrub.

The ride reminded me of the first time Evan and I made plans in Seattle, where we were both graduate students at the University of Washington. It was my first time living away from Florida’s swamplands and among the Evergreens and Big Leaf Maples. I had a part-time job at Anthropologie, helping to dress women who were moms and business professionals. They all had a sadness about them—not knowing if they looked best in blue or green.

It was the beginning of my first semester, and the weather was still warm. Evan was supposed to pick me up from work and we would go to dinner. I remember the sun shining through the large windows of the store at the end of my shift. I was folding clothes on a rustic shelving unit when a piece of wood got jammed underneath my fingernail, and I needed it removed. Evan drove me to the ER, then, too. He stayed with me, even though we barely knew each other, while the doctor removed long, thin splinters of some unamed ancient tree from my nail bed.

Almost exactly 4 years later, in mid-October of 2011, I was admitted to Queens Hospital in Honolulu, pumped up with fluids, and given a brain MRI with contrast. I’m not sure if it was vertigo or just the intensity of the situation, but the whole day was a blur. I left with a diagnosis of Dandy Walker Variant, marked by an abnormal cerebellum (the MRI makes it look like there is a black hole leisurely floating in the back of my brain) and a referral for a neurology follow-up the following week.

I don’t remember what happened next in any sort of linear way, but I was terrified. I knew a professor who recommended a neurologist who could see me immediately and I went. As he read my scans, I was hoping for a pill that would fix whatever was making my brain more like a kaleidoscope rather than a complex system of signals. Instead, the neurologist told me I had a congenital disease and that I wouldn’t be able to have children. I was confused and devastated.

Evan and I returned to our little one-bedroom apartment in Hawaii Kai after that appointment. We both cried and slow-danced to Youth Lagoon’s song “Seventeen” in the dim yellow lights of our living room. We talked about the future—we both wanted children. How would this change us? Our plans for a family? He mentioned adoption as he held me. I felt safe and scared and that everything I thought was good about my body was now ruined. Instead, a Venus Fly Trap lived inside my brain. Stay away, theif. You’ve already taken enough.

*

According to the Cleveland Clinic, Dandy Walker is characterized by an enlarged fourth ventricle, a complete of partial absence of the cerebellar vermis, a cyst formed near the fourth ventricle, an enlarged posterior fossa (base of the skull), and/or hydrocephalus. Pressure can be relieved by putting in a shunt, but other than that, there is no “cure” or treatment other than surgery. When I saw the scans of my brain from 15 years ago, it looked there was a small balloon— a cyst— at the base of my cerebellum.

Dandy Walker is mostly found in babies, often diagnosed in utero and referred to as Dandy Walker Syndrome, or DWS, sometimes also referred to as DWM, which stands for Dandy Walker Malformation. I have a variant of the disease, yielding less symptoms, which is probably why I never knew there was something different about my brain. It’s a very rare disease, only 1 in 25,000 to 35,000 babies are diagnosed in the United Sates every year.

Because this disease is so rare, and usually studied by pediatric neurologists, it has been extremely difficult to find specialists who treat Dandy Walker in adults. I’ve spent over a decade trying to find a neurologist in Hawai‘i who is knowledgeable about the disease. But more recently, I’ve been trying to find someone to help me find the link between my asymmetrical hearing loss and what’s happening in my brain.

*

I think about Rory, who was unplanned, and came into this world fighting to secure his place in it. Before my children were conceived, they were discussed as though they were precious recipes handed down from my grandmothers, with ingredients like genetic mutations and chromosomal abnormalities. Despite hearing that I couldn’t have children, I was determined to try.

Within a year of getting married, I was pregnant with my first child. The worry was infinite. Would the baby have Dandy Walker? I felt like everything about who I was and what I was growing inside me depended on whether this disease would take off its coat and reveal its fat, liquid-y body inside my daughter’s brain. There were so many tests—before and after conception. There were forms to fill out, family history questions, scans, ultrasounds, and lots of bloodwork. My healthy baby girl, Jonie Fay, was born on December 30th, 2015. Evan and I drank a glass of champagne from the hospital bed on New Year’s Eve, and I felt this new life we had just made was the only firework on Earth.

Jonie’s brain was perfect. No abnormalities. No malformations. As far as I was concerned, I was fine too. No strange symptoms to report. I could live happily apart from my diagnosis because I was told I could live like this, asymptomatic, for the rest of my life.

My second pregnancy was different. At the very end, I had terrible headaches that felt worse than migraines. My neurologist rushed me for an MRI just a few days before I gave birth. I was huge, and the machine was extremely uncomfortable, even in the one made for extra large pregnant bodies. The scan took an hour, but everything was fine. No aneurysm. No hydrocephalus. Just pain that couldn’t be explained. My son, Elvis, was born March 28th, 2018. After two nights in the hospital’s main wing, we were sent home with another beautifully-brained baby.

3.

Being a new mom tore me open. I cried when the baby cried. I cried when the baby slept, a rare occasion I coveted. I cried for who I used to be—a slow, years-long mourning. I cried for who I would become, even before the becoming. Those first months postpartum, I had wild dreams of decapitated baby heads, tsunamis that washed us all away, and one particular dream where my daughter’s eyes looked like they had been replaced with vacant holes in the shape of stars.

What would Kimmerer say about the dreamwold of moss? If they could name themselves inside their moss universe, they could certainly imagine of a life so intimately different from their own?

Boquila trifoliolata, also called the chameleon vine, engages in “mimetic polymorphism”, meaning it actually can change the shape and color of their leaves to mimic plants around them. They do this in order to live. To find light. Are their shifting identities a survival mechanism, or are they telling the world, just like a postpartum mother, this is just who I am right now?

*

After my stint at the hospital and my follow-up with another neurologist, the vertigo lessened until it disappeared. But the ghost of that experience still follows me. I finished my PhD without another episode, but there I was, with something in my brain, something that’s always been there that no one, including me, has never named. And now, who am I?

According to the Cleveland Clinic, Dandy Walker is characterized by an enlarged fourth ventricle, a complete or partial absence of the cerebellar vermis, a cyst formed near the fourth ventricle, an enlarged posterior fossa (base of the skull), and/or hydrocephalus. Pressure can be relieved by putting in a shunt, but other than that, there is no “cure” or treatment besides surgery. When I saw the scans of my brain from 15 years ago, it looked as though there was a small balloon— a cyst— at the base of my cerebellum.

Dandy Walker is mostly found in babies, often diagnosed in utero and referred to as Dandy Walker Syndrome, or DWS, sometimes also referred to as DWM, which stands for Dandy Walker Malformation. I have a variant of the disease, yielding less symptoms, which is probably why I never knew there was something different about my brain. It’s a very rare disease, only 1 in 25,000 to 35,000 babies are diagnosed in the United Sates every year.

Because this disease is so rare, and usually studied by pediatric neurologists, it has been extremely difficult to find specialists who treat Dandy Walker in adults. I’ve spent over a decade trying to find a neurologist in Hawai‘i who is knowledgeable about the disease. But more recently, I’ve been trying to find someone to help me find the link between my asymmetrical hearing loss and what’s happening in my brain.

*

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but at some point after I received the MRI that diagnosed me with Dandy Walker, I was sent for an audiology exam. The report showed some mild hearing loss in my left ear. I didn’t think too much of it. I was still teaching at the university and did find that it was hard to hear my students at times. Reading my students’ lips as they spoke became my hack for leading discussions in the classroom. Eventually, I started getting a little annoyed with myself, always asking people to repeat themselves. What? was a common word around the house.

My husband is half deaf, the result of countless childhood ear surgeries, so we survive with 1 pair of good ears between us. Those early years raising our babies was great—then Covid hit. I shifted thinking about my brain to my body. To my husband’s body. To my children’s bodies. The world shut down and we embraced our country life, without doctors’ offices or hospitals—trying to avoid them at all costs.

On Oahu, the capacity to treat Covid patients, both young and old, was limited. When my son split his head open on a coffee table, we didn’t take him to the ER. I FaceTimed our pediatrician and she recommended not going to the hospital if we didn’t have to. Ice packs, towels, and some butterfly bandages did the trick, but that night I had a dream that his brain was oozing out from his skull.

*

This past year, my hearing loss has been more noticeable. If the kitchen faucet is on, I can’t hear my family even 4 feet away. If there are competing noises in a room, I can’t focus or decipher which sound is which. I can’t read and listen to music at the same time. When my family practices their musical instruments, I have to retreat into another room because the sound makes me anxious.

Recently, I decided to get a follow up audiology test and the difference between this one and the test from 6 years ago was quite different. The hearing loss in my left year has increased to moderate. My right ear is also losing its ability to hear middle tones, a sensorineural issue. I left with the audiologist suggesting hearing aids.

I have been searching for the reason, or a possible link, between what’s going on inside my brain and how the outside world can name it. Is the Dandy Walker affecting my hearing? Is there a tumor in my ear? I’m only 42–isn’t that too young for hearing loss?

From the outside, I am a potter and small business owner with some local success, mom of 2 great kids, a wife to the brilliant and hilarious Evan, and a poet who published a book. From inside my circle, I am a dedicated mom who struggles to fulfill my own wants and needs and the wants and needs of others. I’m a wife with good intentions, but who is sometimes irritable and erratic. I’m a friend who unintentionally misses birthdays and doesn’t text back, not because I don’t want to, but because I have so many things on my mind. I’m a person, just like any other person, with too many things on her plate to be reasonably obsessed with her malformed brain.

*

I was told that asymmetrical hearing loss isn’t the result of a traumatic event. I’ve never worked in noisy construction sites. I’ve been to concerts, but after I got kicked in the head crowd surfing at an Everclear show in 1999, I’ve haven’t been that close to a stage since.

Being diagnosed with Dandy Walker malformation gave me the reason for my clumsiness, for walking on my toes until 11 years-old, for having poor reading comprehension, and difficultly with balance. My kindergarten teacher, the scary Mrs. Brodie, wanted to hold me back a year. My parents sent me for an IQ test instead and I qualified for the gifted program, not a learning difference diagnosis (although, back then, my parents said Mrs. Brodie thought I was “retarded,” which is a whole other can of traumatic worms). Perhaps they missed something then. Perhaps life would have been different if I knew about this very rare congenital disease, long ago.

But hearing loss—where is the why for that? I’ve become obsessed with trying to find a bridge between this symptom and Dandy Walker. I’ve been going Google-deep, asking Claude for guidance and joining Dandy Walker Facebook groups. That has been the scariest. Folks with conditions like mine seem to get worse as they approach middle-age. Some have difficultly reading or have lost their ability to read at all. Some people have written about their loss of words, or speech entirely. Some are so tired they can no longer have a job. Some people have shunts that work, some have shunts that leak, some have trouble finding doctors and have hearing loss, like me.

It feels like my brain is trapped inside a forest filled with storms of information, a confusing web of root systems that never seem to make sense. I’ve been told, my brain is “a strange case”—untranslatable, unknowable, ill. And through my obsessing, I’ve realized what I thought made me sovereign, has actually made me subordinate to a disease.

*

I’ve now been rejected by the two most well-known neurology groups on the island where I live because they cannot treat my diagnosis. I’ve been calling UCLA and Duke, and my insurance company to try and figure out where I fit. Finally, after so much work and a new primary doctor, I finally got into to see a new ENT who scheduled an MRI for me. And the results were startling.

The report did not mention Dandy Walker at all.

After going back and forth with the radiology center that administered the MRI, the radiologist claims that Dandy Walker variants are so common that he didn’t find it important to notate it for the report. This thing that he didn’t think to mention has defined me for almost 1/3 of my life. I made decisions based on this watery bulb in my brain, like, invasive genetic testing and ultimately not receiving epidurals when I went into labor.

The reason it’s so important that this radiologist writes Dandy Walker Variant on the report is so that my insurance will cover any neurology visits I might need in the future. I needed that radiologist to name it. Make me recognizable to others.

*

We figure out who we are within and outside a system of names. My inside circle is more like the inside of a tree, with many circles that represent some part of me that is, was, and the spaces for what will be, which includes what’s happening inside my body. But to define myself completely this way is to lose track of who I am to the world outside of organs and blood. Those names matter, too.

I’ll be fitted for hearing aids this summer. I’m nervous about getting used to a new way of navigating the world, but hoping that they will change my quality of life. I’m looking forward to the sound of nuance, a deeper understanding of the wind rustling through the trees and the mynah birds’ secrets. But at the same time, others will see me, define me, by what I visibly lack.

I’ve always believed identity is fluid. I like the possibility of living multiple lives inside this one body. There will always be shifts in career, hobbies, and social dynamics—but is it the naming of these roles that make meaning of my life? Kimmerer writes of mosses, “They earn their freedom from the pain of change by total surrender to the ways of rain” (35). I want that, too.

Health is as unpredictable as weather, which is as unpredictable as poetry or making pots. One dropped metaphor, one over-fired vase and the whole meaning changes. Maybe for the better. Maybe not. Perhaps Kimmerer is right, surrender isn’t antithetical to sovereignty. Both are ways of opening, gaining autonomy while laying bare to the language of the world.

*

Rory is thriving. His smile is contagious. He might have learned the way lips curve upwards from his parents, who beam delight when they look at their son. And his knowing of himself will be informed by that mirror as the years go on.

During my visit, I held Rory as we watched the trees rattle beside Richland Creek outside my sister’s favorite coffee shop. I whispered in his ear, look at the leaves, let’s count them falling. And we did this. Look at the ripples in the creek. 1,2,3,4…..And we did that, too.

Me, excited to show him the pleasure of noticing something new.

Him, wide-eyed and cooing, thinking about whatever babies think about.

The shape of his aunt’s hand.

The shadow of his mother, still in view.

The name of this tree, the mysterious way its leaves will turn red, then brown, then cease to exist until next Spring.

It had been nearly a year since I read my poetry aloud, and even more years had passed since I attended a poetry reading. But there I was, at HUB COWORKING HAWAII in Honolulu—an unassuming locale for creatives and remote workers—to celebrate local writers hosted by a reading series called Mixing Innovative Arts. With an old-school red telephone booth as decor, mid-century modern furniture, and a small stage set against large windows (yes, there is also moody lighting), this particular space on this particular night affirmed to me that art communities are not only alive and well on Oahu, they are essential for inspiration, entertainment, social well-being, and self-identification.

When I was a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa back in 2009, I started a reading series called Mixing Innovative Arts, which became locally known as M.I.A. I had just come from Seattle, where I earned an MFA in Poetry at the University of Washington, and was searching for a community of like-minded writers who had an interest in public performance. No reading series existed back then when I arrived in Honolulu, so I talked to my department about starting one. The administration decided to support my idea, even though I’m pretty sure only a couple of my professors were truly onboard for a student-run monthly literary event.

I wanted the reading series to be different than other university-sponsored events. In my mind, this series wouldn’t be just for academics—it would be for everyone in the community. I found the diviest dive bar in Chinatown—The Mercury Bar— and M.I.A. arrived. Over the years, I featured poets, storytellers, musicians, and fiber artists who performed their original work against the sound of shaken martinis and broken glass. Eventually I needed a bigger space to accommodate the growing number of audience members. By the time I had moved the series to a larger warehouse-type performance space, I had booked visiting writers (getting poet Brenda Shaughnessy to fly in from New Jersey to give a reading was a true highlight for me), organized writing workshops, even book-making classes. It was a really fun and exciting time to be involved in the literary scene in Honolulu. I was in my mid-20’s and full of energy.

Eventually I got burned out—a typical story. What was intended to be a rotating reading series led and curated by all the students in the graduate program morphed into a responsibility led by a party of one—me. The “support” from my department whittled down to a few professors coming to the monthly events, sometimes just to read their own work. All financial and administrative responsibilities were on me, with a robust teaching load, part-time job, my studies, and a meager $800 teaching stipend. And as I got deeper into full-time work, dissertation writing, and pottery, I decided to give M.I.A. to a younger grad student, Joseph Han. I knew Han because he was a T.A. in one of the writing classes I taught, and he seemed really stoked about M.I.A. and its magic. Joseph lovingly ran it for a couple of years, but then M.I.A. got handed down again, until it eventually disappeared.

Even though by this time I had graduated and was was steeped in life with a newborn, I was disappointed that this community I helped build was over. Did part of me disappear with it? Did these gathering spaces matter as much as I thought they did?

Nearly 7 years after M.I.A. officially ended, I got an email from the director of Creative Writing at UH, Tiana Kahakauwila. She wanted to bring M.I.A. back, with my permission, which I found to be so kind and generous. Tiana and I met up at my art gallery and talked about M.I.A. Tiana was one of the series’s readers way back when, (she is an amazing writer herself) and had such fond memories of that time when M.I.A. was something we all looked forward to attending. I was onboard for the resurrection of M.I.A., as long as it didn’t require me to organize anything, as my life truly cannot accommodate one more extra-curricular.

When Tiana asked me to read at one of the events, I hesitated. That was my former life. My now-life is not “literary.” But this wasn’t entirely true. I had been writing for this Substack. I have a fairly robust newsletter, where I tend to go on and on and on writing about pottery and business. And sometimes, at a stoplight or when I can’t sleep at 3am, I haphazardly write a poem in my phone. So I agreed to read some new work in February at M.I.A.

Because I hadn’t read publicly in a while, I was nervous, afraid everyone could see my hands shake. To be honest—and honesty is why I am writing these essays—I was also experiencing PTSD. For me, academic life was an unhealthy environment. What would happen if I dipped my toes back in? I could probably write at least a dozen essays about my experiences in academia, ranging from English department fights, politics, toxic power dynamics, infrastructure, low-pay, being overworked, and the list goes on. If you’ve ever spent time as an instructor in academia, I am sure you know what I’m talking about. I can’t even describe the panic attacks, heightened stress levels, and hazing that goes on behind the scenes. I left that world for a reason. And when I did, I learned about boundaries and self-worth and poisonous work environments (which are not specific to academia, of course).

But there I was—a familiar feeling made new by an excited and welcoming audience, fantastic organizers, and a great selection of curated local writers (pictured above from left to right is Sujatha Raman, Kai Lawrence, Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, Alicia Upano, me, and Tiana Kahakauwila). All the readers were dynamic and authentic. I’m especially looking forward to reading Alicia’s forthcoming novel Everything to the Sea.

I read my poems—some I written just a couple of weeks before, some from my book, Anyjar, which was published 9 years ago, right after my daughter was born. The new poems were about the political climate, but also about the relationship between our humanness and nature. The reading went really well and the room was packed—I even dragged some of my mom friends who were so sweet to come to an event they probably wouldn’t have otherwise. While I wish the evening was recorded, maybe it’s better to have existed in a moment—no need to memorialize something that is just starting to breathe again.

This was a positive experience, and I’m writing about it because I’m confused by this feeling of joy. I’ve spent so many years compartmentalizing my life. Academic vs. self-taught potter. Community organizer vs. entrepreneur. Daughter vs. mother. Wife vs. individual. This identity dichotomy is exhausting. Up until that reading, I had used my maiden name, Jaimie Gusman, exclusively for publishing, and my married name for my ceramics. The marketing for the M.I.A. reading used only my married name, Jaimie Nagle. It may seem like a small thing—naming— but is it?

It feels silly, at 42-years-old, to still be wrestling with identity. But the truth is that I’m always dreaming up new lives for myself. And in that process, I’ve developed the habit of minimizing or erasing everything that’s come before. I’m not sure where this comes from, but maybe the realization is that loss is closer to growth than it is to deficit. And sometimes it takes standing in front of a community to figure out who you are in a moment, a season, a life.

I recorded my poem “The Bird Metaphor” for an Instagram post, which I used as the background music for a video of me painting mugs. I decided to combine these two creative lives I’ve been keeping from one another—a scary moment. The post didn’t get many views, as I expected since I am in algorithmic limbo, but that wasn’t the point. I saw this is as a moment to show whoever was watching this other part of me that exists not only outside of pottery, but alongside it. And this is all because of M.I.A.—its reinvention was the invitation I may have needed and I’m so grateful for the folks that continue to do the work of providing a space for people to become themselves.

Here’s the poem, “The Bird Metaphor” and you can follow this link to a google search of “Jaimie Gusman poems”, where you can read a backlog of my published works. Maybe someday I’ll get the courage to combine my pottery practice with poetry. But for now, here’s something.

If you’ve been following me on social media, you might have noticed that I’ve been quieter in my pottery posting in lieu of rage-reposting content in my stories having to do with ICE and the outrageous ways in which immigrants, asylum seekers, and US Citizens are being treated under this administration. It doesn’t seem to matter if you are a child, disabled, or in a medically precarious situation—everyone’s lives and bodies are potential targets of DHS. This is on top of everything else that’s going on in the world—the news that’s buried or cycled through as fast as you can refresh your TikTok feed. With so much happening so quickly, it’s hard to focus. I’ve been submerged. I’ve been stewing. But I’ve also been doing laundry, composing thoughtfully aesthetic school lunches at the request of my 10-year-old, and making pots.

And what does pottery have to do with politics? Can’t I just post pictures of the mountain mugs everyone loves? Unfortunately, I can’t. I’d love to spend my time focusing solely on art and my ultimate mission for my brand '“Icky Love”, which is to create useful objects that bring extra special moments to everyday life. I draw rainbows, paint flowers, carve the Ko‘olaus, and press leaves into clay because this repetitive act is a reminder that nature is what truly connects us. These images are very literally around me while I make, grounding me in my practice. And while I continue to do this work, often alone, inside my garage studio, I do feel a responsibility as an artist and business owner to use whatever platform I have to stand for something, write it in mud.

*

Let me tell you a story—something small that happened to me on Instagram last week. I want to preface this by mentioning that I like to consider myself a friend to all, meaning that I have friends who are yogis and breathwork practitioners, friends who are academics and skeptics, friends who are Republicans, liberals, and even Marxists, friends who are doctors, teachers, and baristas. I generally like everyone, appreciate difference, and I try to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone in my orbit (which has gotten me into trouble at times).

There is a woman I followed up until a few days ago, who is a Human Design coach. She has over 10,000 followers. Let’s call her “K.” Personally, I’m not into Human Design, but as I understand it, it’s the practice of understanding yourself according to a very deep dive into your birth chart. This is really fun for some people, and I love that for them, it’s just never been my thing. Anyways, this woman is someone I know through other friends, which is why I am connected to her, and we’ve only met a couple of times in real life. She posted a variety of slides that basically said, don’t feel pressured to make a political stance on social media just because everyone else is doing it and that some people just don’t have the capacity to hold the world’s problems on their shoulders and they shouldn’t have to.

She was writing this in response to an account that she followed specializing in fashion, interior design, etc. that made it known that if you didn’t agree with her stance, she wanted you to leave her page. This “moral declaration” rubbed K. the wrong way and she unfollowed that account. For K. this felt performative and inauthentic. I can see her point—collective outrage, especially on social media, can feel like an echo chamber or something someone does just to get likes or followers.

K. continued to write “And silence, when it’s conscious, is not a moral failure.” This is where I start losing her. I whole-heartedly disagree. The conscious decision to be silent might be the most toxic way to exist in a society. I believe K. is confusing groupthink with societal obligation. You don’t have to agree with everyone, but especially in times when every decision we make is a political act—from where we spend our money to the music we listen to—individual choices are stances. And those “moral declarations” are essentially weightier than they were when freedom didn’t feel so ambiguous.

I’m not going to repeat everything else K. said in her post, but the gist is that some people just want to raise their kids or make art, run a business, or go to the gym and that’s OK. She ends her post with “Your real life does not pause for every manufactured crisis.” That word, “manufactured,” and the way she used it seemed so cold, so calculated, so belittling, and I lost it.

I got into a back-and-forth with “K” about the responsibility of creators—my first internet fight since I blocked my very outspoken and aggressive Trump-loving cousin. I replied to K. with, “It is our duty as brands, businesses, artists and just human beings to be engaged with society and be part of the change that is necessary for the human rights of everyone.” And let’s face it, the era of the human brand is here and we’re all selling something, whether it’s tangible or not.

I stand by that statement. I also pointed out the privileged position of her post. Her response: I didn’t even know her or what she stood for. She thanked me for her comments. I replied that her reaction told me and everyone else who was reading what I needed to know—her silence said it all. I unfollowed and moved on. But really, I was shaking.

There are so many people in precarious, dangerous, or terrifying circumstances and, of course, one person cannot solve the world’s problems with a social media post, but you can let the consumers of whatever it is you’re selling know that you are an aware, ethical, engaged citizen of the world who stands for something. If you enjoy taking care of a family, making art, running a business, going to the gym or whatever else makes you feel like you, then you better speak up. Individual freedom is not born from silence, it’s the result of a collective voice.

This story is really such a small thing—a little internet tiff. I was trolling and she was trolling back, neither having a conversation. Walls fighting walls. I knew nothing good would come from this exchange, but I still felt like I had to say something not only to K. but the thousands of people that follow her account. I’m not sure if this is “right” or “wrong”—I felt simultaneously validated and shitty.

*

I will tell you this—my body is just as tangled with anger and fear as my mind. I’ve been letting work pile up, starting new projects just to abandon them for others, or just staring at freshly thrown pots with blankness. My body wants to run—so I’ve been running. My body wants to cry—so I’m crying. My body is tired, so I sleep. But I am also calling senators, reposting images that are hard to look at, debating with my parents who couldn’t disagree with my politics more, talking to my kids about these difficult subjects, rethinking how and where I spend my money, AND writing this piece not about pottery but about why art and politics are undoubtedly intertwined, especially in the realm of social media where what you are crafting a narrative for the world to judge you.

It’s not just the art that is political, it’s the making of it. The context of how we create, the freedom to do so, and the exchange of goods and ideas that is all wrapped up in a simple stance, I see you / I see us.

Poet William Carlos Williams had this dictum which became emblematic of the entire Imagist movement in American poetry in the early 20th century (thankfully WCW took only the good ideas from Ezra Pound, not the Fascist ones). It was, “No ideas but in things,” meaning, that in order to express feeling/emotion/philosophy, it must be grounded something that can be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or felt. When I look at the images of Nicole Good being shot through her car, Alex Pretti being beaten and murdered, Liam Coney Ramos in his hat and backpack used as a pawn, Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano detained on her way to school, and the 2-month old girl, Chloe Tina Villacis, being held so tightly by her father while ICE agents smash their car window, it’s evident that these images don’t need lyrical subtext—the anger, sadness, disgust, and horror is all there, everywhere.

*

Artists, writers, and thinkers have debated over and over: how does one make art after genocide? After the Holocaust? After war? We are not in a post-war society. We are very much in it, and there is so much of it—Sudan, Gaza and Israel, Iran, Ethiopia, Russia and Ukraine, Yeman, the United States, and so on and so on—it’s no surprise we are frozen. But frozen does not mean silent.

There has been this myth that America is safe. America not only cares about its own citizens, but also the citizens of the world. A global superpower! But the meaning is depicted in the images we’re seeing like light-switch flickers throughout the day. It’s overwhelming and we cannot ignore it. When we do, we are saying it’s okay to exist outside of society, that what’s okay for some individuals is not okay for others (until it happens to you).

This is the question I believe we should all ask ourselves is, in what context can I create and simultaneously be silent?

[silence]

*

I thought about sending this to all my Icky Love newsletter subscribers knowing they are mostly there for the pottery—not the politics. But then I realized that I’ve been writing this for myself all along. People who know me are aware it’s one and the same for my brand. And that online argument with K. is not doing the work I really want to be doing. If you’re overwhelmed too, it’s okay. If you’re making art, that’s okay. If you’re taking your kids to the movies or eating a pint of ice cream in bed, that’s okay. We need moments of joy and discomfort—that is the measure of a full life. We need thoughtful conversations and meaningful relationships. We need a good ‘ol internet brawl once in a while to feel that fire in our chest that brings us into our studios to make art.

*

Here is a poem that I’ve been meditating on by Mary Ruefle, called “Please Read” from her book My Private Property, published by Wave Books in 2016. It seems like a simple poem, but made so complicated by the perspective.

This poem is so beautiful, painful, and surprising. It takes time to digest. What I am taking away from it in this moment is what it means to be seen and taken care of. Writing from the perspective of the finch, rather than the woman, makes us feel so much more connected to the woman’s life—her sadness and her kindness. The finch couldn’t save this woman from death (we assume she commits suicide by the woman’s final act), but the bird could bear witness to it, show her face through the glass. And the finch keeps on eating because this is life, this is the other side of survival.

life is merely
to ovum and sperm
and where those two meet
and how often and how well
and what dies there.
     --Renee Nicole Macklin, “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs”

It’s been over a decade since I felt desperate for poetry. But then, on January 7th, things changed. I was doom-scrolling when I found some of my former creative writing colleagues posting a poem called “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” by Renee Nicole Macklin, which I quoted above.

You might know Renee by a different name, the one printed in the press, Renee Nicole Good, because she was shot and killed on Wednesday, January 7th, 2026 in Minneapolis by an ICE agent.

*

“On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” was selected as a winner for the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020 by a friend and poet, Rajiv Mohabir who now teaches at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Rajiv and I earned our PhDs at the University of Hawai‘i around the same time, and although he didn’t know Renee personally, something in this poem resonated with him quite deeply.

The poem is about negotiating faith with science and that moment when you realize that everything you’ve been taught by your family—your entire identity— can be challenged in college. I think this is very relatable, and it’s a beautiful poem explaining this experience, of holding two ideas in your head at once.

However, in the context of Renee’s death, I can’t get past the very first line without chicken skin, i want my rocking chairs back. It’s not because these rocking chairs are emblematic of a religious upbringing or a culture of “iced-tea on the front porch”, but because Renee will never sit in those rocking chairs again.

*

I’ve written and rewritten this essay multiple times over the past week. Between rewrites, I’ve had to ask myself why are you writing about Renee Good and what does her death have to do with poetry? With you?

Renee was a human who deeply cared about what was happening in her city, and how she showed up.

I am a human who deeply cares about the what’s happening in the world and how I show up in it.

Renee was a mother. I am a mother.

Renee was a poet. I am a poet.

*

My first memory of poetry with a capital “P” was not in school. It was in a local bookstore on the east side of town where I grew up—a hot swampy suburb of south Florida developed in the 80’s from farmland to housing communities with ornate gated entrances. Bookstores were a safe space for me, away from the noise and tumult of my family home.

I picked up a book by Audre Lorde—her collected work— and immediately sat on the cold and dusty floor, thumbing through pages, picking out lines and words I would highlight later. Lorde—a lesbian, mother, and African American activist—and I had absolutely nothing in common. In 1996, I was a melancholic, white thirteen-year-old from the burbs and Lorde was already at 62 an accomplished poet and radical icon.

I bought the book with my babysitting money and carried it around like a secret. I continued to study Lorde in college, in my MFA program, and especially as a PhD student interested in radical poetics.

As I look back on Lorde’s work, I can’t get this stanza from her poem, “To The Poet Who Happens to Be Black and The Black Poet Who Happens to Be a Woman” out of my head:

I cannot recall the words of my first poem
But I remember that promise
I made my pen
Never to leave it lying
In somebody else’s blood

*

In the magazine, Sojourner, Volume 10, Issue 5, Audre Lorde is quoted from her talk titled, “A New Spelling of Our Name” at the Women’s Theological Center in Boston on January 18th, 1985. She is speaking to the audience about the West African tradition of renaming “as a ritual of renewal” (16). She says, “The process of renaming, of respelling our names is part of learning to live a self-conscious existence, gaining a deepening consciousness of self through everything we do…I know what it costs me to live, and I encourage to remind you to recognize what it costs you to live” (16). In this talk, Lorde is pointing to something we all already know: that everyone before us has taught us something. We absorb the names of those people, and their names become part of us.

When I scroll Reddit threads, Facebook forums and Instagram posts about Renee Good, I see comments like “I am Renee Good”, “Her name was Renee Good and we will not forget”, and “We will remember Renee”.

*

In Lorde’s same talk, she brings up a few names—Black women whose names she’s absorbed into her own— all of them victims of systemic abuse by the American government. There is one story Lorde speaks of that when I read it, I am completely shattered:

“And each one of us sitting in this room must come to name ourself Renee Green, Do any of you know who she was? Renee Green was a 29-year-old Black woman who was evicted from her apartment with her two-month old child and went to live with her sister and her two children. But they were evicted from that public housing because Renee had been dropped from welfare rolls, unable to keep up with various forms. At that point she killed one of her sister’s children, and was about to kill her own when a SWAT team broke in and blew her head off. Renee Green was twenty-nine years old, and she is one spelling of all our names” (16-17).

Two Renees, shot dead by officers. Two completely different circumstances, 41 years apart. Both tragedies, both desperate to survive as best they could.

*

I can be enraged that a young Black mother facing severe housing challenges was so desperate for her situation to end, that she couldn’t see a way out. I can also be shocked and disgusted that this same woman killed her sister’s child. Murder is never excusable, but the context is also subtext.

In an earlier draft of this essay, I wrote, “The eerie coincidence of a Renee being shot in the face in January of 1985 and a Renee being shot in the face in January of 2026 is not lost on me, but it’s hardly the point. These are both women of circumstance, of desperation. That has been you and it has been me, and now Renee is you and Renee is me. Renee is my daughter and yours, my son and yours.”

I speak about this with my husband, Evan, and he can’t stop thinking about how Renee Green could shoot her own sister’s child, let alone her own baby. How can you compare Renee Good, who killed no one, and Renee Green, who killed a child? You can’t compare. Evan is right, there is nuance in pain—Green was wrong for killing that child, no matter the circumstance. And SWAT was wrong for killing Green.

But my bones feel it differently—everything that led up to that situation is, in my mind, a product of systemic racism and so was the killing of Renee Good, despite her whiteness, who was trying to stand up for her community.

*

Maybe this is the case for poetry—to tackle the nuance in narrative, to question meaning because meaning is never singular.

I can be a citizen, sick to my core by Renee Good being shot 3 times by an ICE officer, even if she was blocking ICE with her car, even if she was heckling the officer.

I can feel empathy for this officer because months prior he was severely injured after being dragged by a car and didn’t receive the help he needed to do his job appropriately and legally after such a traumatic event. I can also hate this man for making a choice that I find morally and ethically inexcusable.

I can never forgive this man, an officer of the law, for saying fucking bitch after murdering Renee.

*

Lorde writes, in her poem, “Power”:

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.

This poem was published in 1978.

*

I am writing this after another shooting in Minneapolis by ICE. More people will likely die and poetry cannot solve the problem, of course. Part of my turbulent relationship with poetry is that it’s often conflated with activism and there is a real difference, to me, between writing and doing. And yet, poetry is where I turn in times of devistation.

The poets who made up the Futurists, Dadaists, Objectivists, Stridents, Beat poets, Black Arts Movement, Négritude, and the many more across the globe, have used language to push for change and justice. And while Andre Breton’s Surrealist art didn’t change the political landscape, it became emblematic of a break in thought in post WW1 Europe.

Sometimes poetry only gives us awareness or context, but a good poem can also make us read red but feel blue. Poems are historical records, whether they simply document a moment through imagery or use language as a tool to uncover some universal human feeling. And maybe the point is Renee Good was a poet, sure, but she was also a lot of other things. She is the poem we are all writing right now, but also the poem written before, and the one we will write after.

*

For the past couple of weeks, making pots has taken a backseat to reading and writing. Even though I can make all sorts of connections to how working with the earth is healing, it’s language that’s been on my mind.

Here is a list of poems I’ve been (re)reading. I can’t say they offer hope, but they have made me feel connected to this moment. Maybe they can offer you something, too.

Sisters in Arms

Elliptical

Pussy & Queer Poem

An Agony. As Now.

What Kind of Times Are These

Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem

Emergence of the Noose

A New National Anthem

America

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Just Run Me Over

One year ago, I was sprawled out, crucifixion style, in the Times Supermarket parking lot in Kāneʻohe. Located across from Valley of the Temples, a gorgeous cemetery with rolling hills and the famous Buddhist Byodo-In Temple, this plot I chose on the ruffled pavement was quite the juxtaposition to the memorial park and meditation garden just across the highway. Even on a night as big and star-specked as that one, I was small. I wanted to be even smaller, stepped on, squished back into the earth.

This might be surprising to those of you who know me. I am generally a happy, talkative, social person. If I were to ask friends to describe me in 3 words, they would probably say I am gregarious, positive, and quirky. I am also known for the colorful imagery on my pots that reflect the beauty of the place where I live.

And if you don’t know me and just found me here, or only know of my Icky Love pottery brand, my now-closed art gallery in Kailua, or my poetry, then welcome. I’m glad you’re here, truly.

I’m a mother and a wife.

I’m an artist.

I’m a business owner.

I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

And I don’t fuck around.

*

One year ago, I thought, just run me over. One year ago that thought turned into a scream that echoed through the Ko‘olau mountains. Just run me over.

I’m not going to run you over, Jaimie, my husband assured me.

I was begging him to take our janky SUV and drive right over me to “end it all” until the auntie working the night shift at Times told me, despite my clearly unhinged state, I couldn’t lie down in the parking lot.

I felt a little ashamed at being reprimanded, but mostly pissed that I didn’t get to make my point. The next morning I realized there was no point for me to have made. I was hungover with nothing but embarrassment for the spectacle that was me after drinking. I was maxed out with domestic responsibilities, running an art gallery and maintaining a pottery business, all while trying to be happy.

*

Earlier that evening, I was out for a date night with my husband, Evan, at our favorite sushi restaurant. It had been a long time since our last date, and we needed it. We shared a bottle of our favorite Junmai Daiginjo. I probably had beer or two between sake cups, maybe a whiskey too. Dinner was lovely—light and fun. Then, on the way home, we got into a disagreement about who knows what—I truly cannot remember the details. I can say that it was silly—like if there is a difference between how your body digests honey and white sugar (Evan would say sugar is sugar, but I will die on the hill that waves its infinitely healthier honeybee flag).

By the time we got home, I had had a long and drawn out panic attack with another one making a fort in my throat. My mother-in-law was babysitting the kids—a rare occasion to have family in the area to help—so I rushed passed her to my bedroom, afraid she would see my puffy face. I was scared and angry and had no idea why I couldn’t speak or make sense of my breath.

*

I quit drinking on January 1st, 2025.

It’s been one year since my last sip of alcohol. It took me over two decades to realize that I had a bad relationship with drinking. I had access to a steady flow of liquor and beer by 14-years-old and my drinking increased through college and in grad school when I worked at a bar. I didn’t day-drink too often, but the amount I could throw back in a short amount of time was impressively dark.

I’ve always struggled with depression. My parents got divorced when I was 29, the year I got married, and my mom sold my childhood home as quickly as she could. She sent me boxes of my things, including one of all my old writing. The poetry I was constructing as a teenager was disturbing—pages of suicidal ideation masked as the “speaker” of these poems. As a parent myself, I can’t imagine reading these from my own daughter and not being concerned. But I grew up with parents who didn’t engage with feelings.

*

My depression was most severe when I drank. I confused these feelings of sadness and loneliness with what I thought was getting to the core of my true self. But those moments when I was blacked-out and kissing a stranger in the bushes or begging the bartender in a mop closet for one more shot even though I was underage and out of money was not me.

As I got older and had my kids, drinking wasn’t at the forefront of my life, but Covid definitely made it easy to excuse an hourly gin and tonic that began at 11am on a random Tuesday. After a long day of “homeschooling” my kids, I had to consciously make a decision: am I going to cut my drinking short so I can make pots tonight or am I going to pass out at 8:30pm? Sometimes I would lay in bed, thinking about the pots I was going to make, but tomorrow.

When I could move my body better.

When my brain was clearer.

But I was often hungover.

One year ago I told Evan I didn’t want that version of me out there in the world anymore.

The Shift

It’s been one year since I made a whiskey cup—one of my favorite vessels to throw on the wheel. I love how short and compact they are. How the rim glides toward your lips, and how, in its leather-hard state, can rest in your hand like a bird.

Evan has been so supportive in my not drinking. He also hasn’t had alcohol in a year—an act of solidarity and love. Quitting alcohol is a hard thing to do alone, and I’m so glad I don’t have to. And while I haven’t felt any huge daily relief from not drinking, I do feel more able to communicate my feelings, rather than drown them in a cocktail.

I don’t talk about the why to a lot of people. It’s easy to say that as I age, the less alcohol agrees with me. The truth is that drinking probably never agreed with me, but it became part of my identity. Jaimie who could hang until 4am. Jaimie who would always say what’s on her mind. Jaimie who was always laughing. Jaimie who was always crying.

*

When I was writing poems more regularly than making pots, I felt like I needed to let the page know how dark it was inside my body. If I could just get it out and keep it out, I would feel better. But no matter how you arrange those insides, the page doesn’t end.

Maybe this is why I like ceramics so much. Throwing a pot requires your whole body. Your energy very tangibly shapes the earth. You give it everything you have, and your body knows when it’s ready to move on. With writing, you can stay stuck in that inside place forever: a parking lot across from a cemetery.

*

I had a professor in grad school who pointed out to our class that every poet is trying to write the same poem over and over again—to get at a universal truth. I don’t know what to make of that; I’m not sure that repetition is specific to poetry. I make a ton of mugs hoping to achieve that perfect content and form ratio, over and over again.

I think maybe we’re all just tugging at the one thread, hoping to unravel something new with each rotation. I make happy pots that sometimes come from a place of conflict and disjunction, like a dark clay with a white slip, or a water moccasin slithering through a rainbow.

“One Art”

One of my favorite poets, Elizabeth Bishop, in her poem One Art, writes, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” This line repeats itself in each tercet, as is the parameter of the villanelle structure. The poem talks about losing small things (“my mother’s watch) and big things (“a continent”)—and while Bishop convinces her reader that it really isn’t difficult to lose, by the end of the poem, there is a shift— both structurally and tonally. The last stanza, the one quatrain, reads,

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture 

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Most people read this as a final admission that yes, loss is part of living and we all master it. But it is not as nonchalant as the speaker proposes in the beginning and middle of the poem.

“I shan’t have lied,” it is a disaster.

At different times in my life, I read the poem differently. One year ago I might have said that losing the small things or big things all look the same—a cracked phone screen, a kiln load of over-fired custom orders, my kids’ school event that I missed. In the grand scheme of things, none of it is disastrous. But today, one year since I stopped drinking, loss looks a little more like moving forward. Like the art of losing is also the art of beginning—it is, as the title suggests, One Art.

*

One year ago I lost my ability to drink socially, or alone in a dark garage while making a pot. But I gained a lot of time—time to make art, to make memories with my family that I’ll remember, to re-organize my life. 2025 was a difficult year. From my mother’s aortic aneurysm and my nephew being born at 26 weeks old to closing my art gallery of over 60 local artists—it’s been a doozy. I am going to take Elizabeth Bishop’s line “Write it! (Like disaster)” to heart. That’s what this substack is for—to continue what I do best, building community out of my love for creativity.