Writer
On a warm day in early November, I walk from the paved Metroparks path that runs parallel to the road, and step into the shade where a new path forks off, marked with a “no bikes” sign. My baby is asleep in her wrap, warm against my body. Carrying her like this reminds me of … Continue reading In Mundo Cervorum
Remember those “Dear America” books in middle school? They were fictional diaries from the point of view of young characters living through historical events. Those books cycled through the school library like nobody’s business, and I was certainly one of the girls who pawed through them many times, further fraying the ribbon bookmark that came … Continue reading Dear Diary / Dear Stranger / Dear Void
August & September 2020 The three of us—Patrick, me, and our friend Jake—piled into my car for an Ohio road trip. It was early August. I sat in the backseat, the guys in the front. Patrick drove while Jake and I took turns playing music. “God, it just feels good to be going somewhere,” Jake … Continue reading Plague Diary, Part 5: “Are You Ready?”
I walked through the wide-open side door and climbed the steps to the upstairs half of a slightly scrummy duplex in one of Cleveland’s west side suburbs. It was the end of May, and my sister-in-law, Margaret, was turning twenty-two. Margaret greeted me and ushered me through the kitchen into the rest of the house, … Continue reading A Profile of Margaret : “I’m Not Really a Mess”
April 24, 2020 I sit in my car, parked in the middle of the bustling grocery store parking lot. I’m trying to gather the motivation to actually get out of the car and walk into the building, grab a sanitized cart, follow arrow stickers on the floor through a maze of one-way aisles crowded with … Continue reading Plague Diary, Part 4: “Don’t call me at home, ’cause I won’t be there.”
April 12, 2020 Patrick has been working from home for almost a month now. I’ve gotten used to waking up to the smell of coffee already brewing, the lights in the house already turned on, music or a podcast playing from the dining room. Patrick has set up his workspace in there: a laptop, a … Continue reading Plague Diary, Part 3: “I heard another beep. Who just joined?”
April 10, 2020 The first couple weeks of quarantine, I went out in the woods every day. This isn’t something specific to the pandemic; whenever it’s warm, I walk the parkway path to a patch of woods and murky creek near my house. I track deer, sometimes working my way close to the group of … Continue reading Plague Diary, Part 2: “Don’t come crying to me for any fish”
April 3, 2020 “You look like you’re in some future cyberpunk gang.” I am dressed in black jeans and a black hoodie, an oversized flannel jacket, and a pair of Docs caked in Cuyahoga mud. My hair is uncombed and dip-dyed a hue that I swear is blue but that my husband, Patrick, says looks … Continue reading Plague Diary, Part 1: “I hate this timeline”
The three-pound box of bees fizzed with movement, hundreds of little insect bodies churning and buzzing. Tanya held them in gloved hands and inhaled the spring air. The smell of back garden leaf litter and May mud filtered through the gauzy veil she wore to protect her head and … Continue reading Embracing the Weirdness
Hannah Williams 