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List Of Thoughts I Wrote Down While Going Nuts In Quarantine

Jessica Laurel Kane

“I remember reading about these two guys who escaped prison in Upstate New York a handful of years back, how one of them had a dad who was a total fucking no show. How he finally bought his son a bike for his birthday but it wound up being used and broken, and the son was so disappointed he threw it out the window, and then the police were called and the son was the one who got in trouble.”

— from 'List of things i wrote down while going nuts in quaratine'

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A Scene From When My Mother Moved Out Of My One-Bedroom Apartment After Living With Me For Six Month

Jessica Laurel Kane

“The alarms went off at 4am. My mother insisted I set every one we own. There was no way I was getting up at that ungodly hour so I stayed in bed listening to her rustling⁠—her hairdryer, her zippering⁠—all the things that’ve been annoying me for months, and yet I found myself soaking them all in, knowing I won’t be hearing them again anytime soon.”

— from 'A Scene From When My Mother Moved Out Of My One-Bedroom Apartment After Six Months'

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Libraries of Trauma

Jessica Laurel Kane

“The thing about trauma is that if you don’t get it out and identify it as trauma, you risk continuing to cope with trauma simply because you might not have the sense to recognize that’s what it is.”

— from 'Libraries of trauma'

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An Old Conversation With My Mother About War

Jessica Laurel Kane

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An Old Conversation With My Mother When I Was Falling Apart

Jessica Laurel Kane

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The Wounded Mother

Jessica Laurel Kane

A piece about the unresolved issues that the mothers and daughters in my family uploaded to each other over generations.

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The Experiment With Positive Thinking in the Car with My Mother

Jessica Laurel Kane

The time my mother was about to launch into one of her episodes, and I noticed that what I think actually changes the world around me.

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Thinking About The Masks We Wear

Jessica Laurel Kane

How my mother inadvertently taught me that the way to protect yourself in the world, is to pretend to be someone else. And how I learned from my son that this isn’t a very good idea.

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The Most Powerful Weapon Is Love

Jessica Laurel Kane

A powerful experience I had one night when my mother was in the hospital and I was staying in her apartment.

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Section 8

Jessica Laurel Kane

The time I tried to help my mother, but discovered she didn’t want my kind of help, and there was nothing I could do about it. A piece about how I learned to honor everyone’s journey, even if it looks problematic to me.

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My Grandmother

Jessica Laurel Kane

Sharing a piece about a powerful experience I had after my grandmother passed. I’m sorry in advance for the heavy duty, and potentially triggering piece.

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Thinking of My Mother's Wardrobe Over The Years

Jessica Laurel Kane

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Visiting My Mother at the Sunrise Inn

Jessica Laurel Kane

I wrote this piece years ago, when my mother was still alive, and when I used to document our time together, to try and make sense of things.

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On The Side of The Survivors

Jessica Laurel Kane

A piece about my mother, about dignity in the face of someone else's privilege.

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You Can't Get Mad at the Dead or How Loss Gave Me A New Perspective

Jessica Laurel Kane

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A List of Things that Kept Me Up Last Night

Jessica Laurel Kane

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An Old Conversation with My Mother

Jessica Laurel Kane

A old conversation with my mother, who remembered the time she accidentally destroyed my favorite doll.

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The Messiness of Judging

Jessica Laurel Kane

A piece about how it’s really impossible to judge anyone because it’s impossible to understand the whole story of what’s going on.

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Filling the Urn Necklace

Jessica Laurel Kane

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To Be Happy…

Jessica Laurel Kane

17 minutes inside the mind of a tired and isolated mother-of-a-toddler.