August Shell Exchange

Welcome to a new fun feature of Invisible Inks: the Shell Exchange!

Each month, about mid-way, I’ll drop a list of recommended reads. Naturally, I’ll feature winning hermit crab essays (🦀) I happen to stumble across. But I’ll toss in essays on chronic pain or invisible illness, too (those charming crabbies being rare to find)

If you come across an essay I don’t mention but feel warrants attention, make sure you drop the link in the comments, and I’ll see about adding it to the rotation the following month.

For now, here’s the list for August 2022:

1. Examination by Kaushika Suresh 🦀

“17. We are at the bar of a restaurant. I try to grab the bartender’s attention. When that doesn’t work, my partner tries to grab her attention. What would you like? the bartender says. A whiskey sour, my partner says. I open my mouth. The bartender turns, her back to me, pours ice in a glass, and looks for the whiskey. When we get to the table, my partner says, Yeah, do you think that’s because you’re brown.

•     Yes

•     No

•     No, the restaurant is busy, I say.”

2. Knee Deep by Sandy Silverman

“I started physical therapy. At my first appointment, the physical therapist brought the rest of the staff to my examining room. One by one, each therapist moved my kneecaps around. They were impressed. I imagined them talking about me at lunch. I started seeing a physical therapist three times a week.”

3. Conversations with Friends with Endometriosis by Liz DeGregorio

“Then, right before the Covid-19 pandemic, I finally found a wonderful doctor who changed my life. She listened and said what no one else had ever told me before: ‘I believe you.’”