I give way pretty easily to self-pity and defeatism, like an overbaked cake crumbling under the slightest fork. One of the things I like least about myself is how insular I am in grief. To understand a global pandemic, I have to make it about me. To connect with any pain, I have to turn self-referential. But there’s one difference-this time, the whole city’s doing it with me.Įven this is hopelessly human. Their joy felt a lifetime away from my bitterness. I watched spring outside my living room window, the women in their sundresses and sandals. I scooted my chair to chase the sun across the lawn. I sat in our new backyard and read and deep-breathed and cried. It was sudden and unexpected, and left me reeling. TWO YEARS AGO, I had an ectopic pregnancy. With all of us inescapably together as we move through this pandemic, how, she asks, can we make room for grief, empathy, and hope? Self-quarantined and isolated in her apartment in Brooklyn, Hala Alyan is more aware than ever of humanity’s interdependence-suddenly exposed as a raw, pulsing nerve.
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