One

I said to my father that I did not believe you could die of a laugh and he looked over at me and said, “Poor daughter, you can die of nearly anything.”

I had enjoyed pretending that I was a professor and dressing like one,

In my nervousness about my future,

In my nervousness about my future,

Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and I overidentified with the main character

my walks as a form of cure and I took to wearing a light coat because Hans always wore a coat

they were mad with loneliness.

Oh, God, it’s beautiful,” I thought.

I felt the stitched-in wire supports of the cups. The weight they held! Why couldn’t I have such weight?

Maybe it was okay to have some outsized faith in yourself.