mental health
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I live with a dual diagnosis: depression and substance use disorder. that’s the name for it. but what it feels like is living on a hinge: leaning toward one world, pulled by the other. one world is made of steady hands and gentle hearts. the soft echo of my mother’s voice from another room. abuela’s…
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last week, while biking from Times Square to Dumbo Park, this couple from out of town stopped me for directions to the Empire State Building. I often get stopped for directions, probably because I look like I know where I’m going. plus I’m not afraid to make eye contact with strangers. you notice a lot…
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our group leader uses this cool exercise to help us reflect on and address the fears in our lives. she calls it fear in a hat. in this exercise, each person anonymously writes down a fear on a piece of paper. you’re supposed to begin with the words, the worst thing that could happen would…
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this morning I woke up early enough to trace a rectangular patch of sun on the wall opposite to my bed. it was a long, beautiful patch, grapefruit pink sun. it’s one of my favorite things — to trace the sun, and how it paints the East River. many days I feel held together with…
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I work at a donut shop in lower Manhattan. between shifts I earn extra income as a server. a few times a month I’m also a nighttime dishwasher. I pick up some part-time work at Macy’s Herald Square at Christmastime, and I have stood on 6th and Broadway with an ad board over my neck,…
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my abuela is extremely nostalgic about the music she listened to when she was a teenager in the mid-1960s. The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Supremes. sources say she even danced The Twist but those claims won’t be confirmed or denied. (psst I bet she did.) if you were a teen in the 1970s, then…
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I can be swamped by my feelings, like a kid wearing a t-shirt a few sizes too big. this is the way I feel when I make up songs, the way I felt making up this one.
cookie nieves 