Her attempts to keep busy were mostly an effort to fill her life so that she had not time to feel disconsolate. But the nagging sadness was persistent, and it would envelop her when she least expected it.

“Who am I?” is the plaintive cry I used to put out into the world at least every other week.

I feel I have risked something when I write it.

Using COVID-19 as an excuse to continue to wield power over women’s bodies is another kind of virus.

What if this virus, this time we are asked to stay at home, is a new darkness? What if we are invited to be still and to germinate and to see who we really are when we let ourselves reach for the light?

The reason I do Write or Die is in large part to stir up the pot of you, to get you to rethink, revision, and reimagine who you are, what your story is, who your audience is, and what your blocks are.

I’m a feeling machine.

The next time I get to hug someone, I might not let go.

What I do know is that in an ocean of grief, I am a master wayfinder. I know how to hold my center and I am not afraid to sail into the storm. And I’m not the only one of my kind.

Being a part of that group was an amazingly wonderful experience in race relations for me.

I saw a meme the other day: "Introverts, put your book down and check on your extrovert friends – they are not coping." It’s true – just being allowed out to the food shop today lifted my spirits. I really do need people.

Confidence: the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust; the state of feeling certain about the truth of something; a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.