On tears, anger, & Paul Mescal's thighs

Last Friday in March!

Hello and thanks for being here :)

On Saturday, I posted on Instagram about this being an emotional week. If you don’t already know, tomorrow would have been my official due date for a pregnancy that resulted in a missed miscarriage (i.e., it was discovered on ultrasound). After posting, I felt overwhelmed by how scary it is to be vulnerable on the internet. I felt a lot of self-doubt about whether it was a good idea to share. At the end of the day, though, I want to share the messy stuff—not just the happy, exciting stuff. Why is it okay for folks to share ultrasound images, baby bump photos, and images of pregnancy tests they just peed on but not okay to share stories of loss? Nobody should share stories they don’t want to share (joyful or sorrowful ones), but I also don’t think we need to confine miscarriage to the realm of secrecy. It is such a common experience and yet so isolating.

After sharing, I was reminded of a strange moment back in the fall when Neal and I were sitting in our car, having just finished a trail run. Neal was in the driver’s seat and I was in the passenger seat, crying. Fueled by a running-induced elevated heart rate, I was crying anxious, angry tears because the world was still spinning, expecting me to keep up, in spite of the fact that I’d just experienced months of pain—pain worthy of pausing time. A woman waiting at a nearby bus stop spotted me through the car window and mouthed to me to ask if I was okay. I nodded yes and gave a thumbs-up but she wasn’t satisfied. She came over to the window and looked deep into my eyes as she asked whether I was in any danger. In an effort to better explain the situation, I opted for the truth and revealed to this total stranger that I was dealing with a miscarriage. Then, this woman—a tall, middle-aged, Black woman carrying heavy grocery bags in each hand, waiting on a bus—a woman I had never seen in my life but who had approached my window to make sure of my safety—somehow said the words I’d been really needing to hear that day. She told me that she had once lost a pregnancy at five months. And then she said,

“Ain’t nobody can tell you what to feel. That was your baby. That was inside you. Nobody—no doctor, and certainly no man—can tell you how to feel. I don’t even care if it’s your mother or your sister or your best friend. They can’t tell you either. It was in your body. You’re gonna have to cry it out. Each day will get a little easier but you gotta keep crying it out.”

The interaction had the same energy as a public women’s bathroom after midnight in a crowded bar—women who have never met before give each other hairclips, fix each other’s makeup, hype each other up, inquire about each other’s safety, and then go off into the night, never to meet again.

We are not meant to be islands. We are meant to live in community. Sometimes sharing yourself with the world reminds you how connected we all are.

My Instagram post was really about the anger and sadness I feel regarding the state of healthcare and human rights in this country. I mentioned how North Carolina has become a haven for necessary medical care (as the only state with abortion access in this area of the country), which has resulted in overwhelmed clinics, insane wait times, and increased animosity by anti-abortion groups—effects that have spilled over to all clinics that deal with reproductive health, regardless of whether they offer abortions. There are no abortion providers in Durham but I drive by the Planned Parenthood in Chapel Hill when I go to campus and there are protesters outside every time, without fail.

Yesterday, a total abortion ban was introduced by anti-abortion legislators in North Carolina (House Bill 533). Today, I’m calling my representatives. Next week, maybe, I’ll have gathered enough strength to do more. For now, I’m letting myself cry it out, leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability, and preparing for the battle ahead.

Here is an article about the state of abortion care in North Carolina and how it reflects post-Roe America more generally. It also features a colleague of mine’s husband. I have so much gratitude for him and his colleagues.

LOCAL NEWS

• Yesterday I went to campus for a spring event for students that are affiliated with the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center, through which I co-chair a graduate student group. They gave us flowers and snacks and it felt really nice to be on campus and part of an academic community. For me, it’s starting to feel like we are entering a new era of the post-2020-verse—is it just me or are others feeling that way too? Maybe it is just the spring.

• Neal and I are headed to Asheville on Sunday for a Bikini Kill concert on Monday night! The tickets were a delayed-gratification birthday gift from Neal and I am so excited. Inject Kathleen Hanna and the mountain air into my veins, please!

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT

• Neal and I went to a lecture at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art on Tuesday. The guest speaker was Dorothy Roberts, a scholar who has been an absolute force in the world of reproductive justice and child welfare. It was inspiring to hear her talk in person after so many years of reading her work. I also indulged in the Duke-sponsored reception food like the broke grad student that I am.

• We decided to start Season 5 of The Crown. I get why they do it, but it’s always a jolt to have to get used to new faces taking up the roles from previous seasons.

• This video was well worth the five minutes. This is the Irish family that went viral on TikTok back in 2020. I haven’t grown tired of them yet and, seemingly, they’ve never grown tired in their entire lives.

BIRTH NOTICES

• One of the craziest things about living in North Carolina is The Pollining. The Pollining refers to the point in spring when the plants suddenly pop from dead, brown, and grey into bright, green, and fertile, resulting in a thick dusting of lime-green pollen over everything. In the morning, you have to clean off your car so that you can see out the windshield. If it rains, the puddles look like radioactive slime. This year has been more of a slow build due to our early (and unseasonably warm) spring, but I would say this week is the official birth of The Pollining.

• Heart-throb Paul Mescal is from Maynooth, Ireland, so the Dominos in Maynooth is paying tribute to Mescal’s iconic shorts from Normal People by offering their employees uniforms that show a lot of thigh. Thanks to my cousin for alerting me to this fact.

  dublinsocial

  

  A post shared by Dublin Social (@dublinsocial)

  The shorts this uniform references:

IN MEMORIAM

• In case you didn’t know, it’s no longer nerdy to be seen trying, got it? It’s cool; we’re all doing it now.

• Is it too soon to say goodbye to Trump’s dreams of a presidential resurrection?

CARTOONS

Some appropriate memes:

A random Tweet:

Mona @RealMona_

me doing one hour of selfcare after doing 23hours of self-destruction

And one via Neal:

Thanks for reading—I know the contents of this newsletter are quite scattered today. Hope your Friday is less scattered than my brain :)

Love,

Claire