Alive in Winter

I’m not sure that I have anything new to say. And that’s exactly the issue. There is a lot out there about miscarriage. Too much, really, to wade through without a guide. Nothing so far, if I’m honest, that has really spoken to me (though then again, I find myself scrolling through podcast episodes and book titles going, “no…no…no…” – so maybe that’s at least partly on me). And unsurprisingly, there’s nothing at all about having a miscarriage, your body not recalibrating quickly, and a pandemic re-emerging, all while you attempt to go on the academic job market. Rude! What this has meant in practice, though, is that despite ubiquitous cultural scripts of “you are not alone!”—which are slung with abandon in the world of miscarriage literature—I feel very alone. I feel alone because no one has been me before, and no one can tell me for sure that it’s going to be okay. Of course, ironically, this last sentence is true for everyone, always. In some ways I suppose there is comfort in reme...

  "From my chair I watch a spider which made her cobweb on the upper corner of the walls of my study. She was there yesterday and with a broom I got rid of it. Spiders and cobwebs are a sign of carelessness and I did not want my visitors disturbed by their annoying presence. But she returned and rebuilt herself in the same place. I believe that she has forgiven me and that she hopes that I will understand ... I understand. And I decided to share my space with her." These words form the opening paragraph of philosopher Rubem Alves's fragmented and theological The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet , a worn used copy of which sits next to me as I write this. As Alves goes on, he confesses to being like the spider: intent on weaving a web, in his case of words, over a void of the unknown. In a class during my master's degree program where we discussed this text, anxious twentysomethings pushing over one another to be the most sophisticated and critical reader, we pronounced ...