How Do We

Hello friends,

I wrote an essay for my Patreon supporters a month or so ago. Then news cycles happened. Several of them. I never posted it in public.

But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we care for ourselves and each other during such harrowing times. I know. I think about that all the time, and have for years. But as each news cycle comes and goes, I return to this question, over and over.

In a world intent on punishment, greed, and destruction, how do we prioritize caring?

That’s where the essay comes in.

In it, I talk about some of the impact my chronic illness has on my life… and why I worry about people with Long Covid:

Here in Portland, Oregon—and many places in the United States—people have stopped wearing masks because they're sick of it. They don't want to anymore. They want their “freedom.” They want life to feel ordinary again.

I get that. Pandemic is scary. Ordinary is good.

I rode the bus to the post office. The driver and I wore masks. No one else. At the post office, the clerk wore a mask, as did two people besides myself. No one else. Everyone else had decided to get back to normal.

But for people with chronic illness, life is never what anyone would call normal. Our ordinary is your sick day. And a lot of people who've had COVID now have a terrible syndrome called Long COVID. And many of the symptoms they're experiencing seem like some of mine. Crushing fatigue, brain fog, headaches, all the rest. I'm not saying the symptoms map exactly, because they don't. There are many Long COVID symptoms that don't map my autoimmune disorder at all.

But enough do to cause me concern for my friends…

You can read the rest on my blog.

But I’ll leave us all with the question: How do we care for one another? Right here, right now?

best wishes — Thorn

For Pride Month, the ebook of By Wind, Book Three of the Witches of Portland is only .99! Enjoy, and please tell your friends.