Category: Essays
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Whispers
When people ask me if I’m writing anything, I want to say, “Yes, I’m collecting fragments.” Because isn’t that what the majority of writing is? Gathering fragments in our small attempts to put the world and ourselves back together? Like this one from Penelope Lively’s City of the Mind: “She starts to sob, the child:…
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Redefining Home
Home is a concept that has undergone many a change in my heart since freshman year of college. Those earlier years of confused dislocation are documented well enough. But this year in particular has forced me to give up the idea of “settling,” or even of having only one home. The longest I lived in…
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work as love
Nobody prepared me for the identity crisis that is “no longer being a student.” I’ve been working as a full-time brand journalist for two weeks now, and I’m face-to-face with the reality of indefinite work and what that means. Not being someone who wants to climb the corporate ladder, I’m having to redefine what growth,…
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non-mother’s meditation on motherhood
Joan Didion writes in Blue Nights, “Once she was born I was never not afraid.” How much more anxious does one become upon having a child—upon being touched by God to bring up a little life that looks a little like oneself? To see oneself in the face of this sweet creature, this beautiful creature…
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Wild
On Wednesdays, I’ve taken to sitting in front of my window for two hours, seeking to dwell in the time between golden hour and sunset. The tree tops become drenched in honeycomb gold, and the orange blush of the horizon deepens into sienna hues, as if the sky were shy at heaven’s compliments of her…
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collected thoughts, ix
One year ago today, I was on my way to London. * The midnight after “Notes on a Conditional Form” was released, I texted Kailin, “How we feeling about the new 1975 album?” and thus ensued an intense conversation about postmodernism, lyrics, intimacy, all the “behind the song” cards included with each track in Spotify,…
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collected thoughts, v
It is blue hour now, the sky tinged with violet hues that ache with soft pink and washed-out yellow. * I stopped listening to Of Monsters and Men for several months last semester. In the midst of grief, of lamenting the necessity of goodbyes and see-you-laters, the melodies were too jarring. They made me cry.…
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collected thoughts, iii
This one is a little on the more difficult and heavy side. If you’re dealing with your own emotional burdens and reading about someone else’s may make your battle harder, please feel free to close out the tab and come back another time. But if you have space somewhere to help me bear this, I’d…
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collected thoughts, ii
I’m kicking myself for not starting a quarantine log, but today is day nine and I have a lot to be thankful for. There is a certain level of guilt that comes from being able to stay home with a family that loves me, with woods and fields to saunter through when I get restless,…
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collected thoughts, i
This morning I hit the snooze button for an hour and a half before writing a draft for a paper in one hour instead of two and a half. I’m still tired and the coffee isn’t helping. * Sometimes all you can do is write one or two lines at a time. * I believe…
Eliana Chow 