mental health
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this morning I woke up early and watched the light come up over Brooklyn. the skyline going soft and gold for a few quiet minutes before the trains start screaming and everybody remembers where they have to be. it felt like the first day of something. or maybe just another day. sometimes those feel the…
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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 