“I will cut adrift—I will sit on pavements and drink coffee—I will dream; I will take my mind out of its iron cage and let it swim—this fine October.”
— Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry c. October 1927 featured in “Diaries,” (via violentwavesofemotion)
“I am not single and entire as you are. I have lived a thousand lives already. Everyday I unbury, I dig up.”
— The Waves, Virginia Woolf
Signs of a heart attack are different for each gender yet we only really teach the male warning signs. Make sure you’re aware of both and spread it to as many other women as possible!
EVERY SINGLE TIME I HAVE TAKEN A CPR CLASS I have had to be that person who points out that the training videos ALWAYS frame the “male” symptoms as the default universal heart attack experience, while the “female” symptoms are framed as though they’re a deviation from the norm, rather than the primary symptom set that cis women experience.
ALSO: I just showed this post to my roommate, who is an MD at a clinic that specializes in care for the LGBT community in the Baltimore area. I asked her whether hormones were responsible for the difference in the “male/female” symptom arrays. I asked how that would apply to her trans patients (which, she treats a LOT of trans patients). She said, basically, that the longer you’ve taken testosterone the more likely you are to get the intense chest pressure and the arm pain, versus the upper back pressure and shortness of breath.
Obviously I am not a doctor myself, consult your own health care provider, etc.
Vicente Huidobro, tr. by Ian Barnett, from The Arctic Poems; “Vermouth,”
“Have I lost enough of myself to find you?”
— Alice Notley, from Alma, Or The Dead Women: Poems; “And Have You Been Forgotten,”
“She must fight against lethargy. It’s a strong desire – to sleep. To sleep and sleep. To sleep forever. She can’t live only in the present,”
— Margaret Atwood, from “The Year of the Flood,” published c. 2009
“I either want to be alone or with people I truly care about and love.”
— Zola Jesus, interviewed by Anca Macavei for Nasty Magazine c. July 2019
“I now yearned for love, meditation, leisure, great ideas, eternal images.”
— César Vallejo, tr. by Clayton Eshleman, from Selected Writings; “Peace,”
“Folk legend, fairytale, myth are thought of as escapist, but in reality they’re not - they’re distilled metaphor and truth.”
— Alan Garner (Interview in BBC TV programme “Sleuths, Spies & Sorcerers”)
Ioanna Tsatsou, tr. by Jean Demos, from Collected Poems; “You Have Left,”
Niji no Izumi, the life’s work of ceramicist Kenji Azuma
Mahmoud Darwish, from Almond Blossoms and Beyond; “I Do Not Sleep To Dream,”
