December Shell Exchange

Welcome to the December 2022 Shell Exchange!

Midway through each month, I drop a list of recommended reads. I try to feature winning hermit crab essays (🦀) when possible. But those charming crabbies aren’t always easy to find. So I also make it a point to share pieces on invisible illness.

If you come across an essay or article I haven’t mentioned that you feel warrants attention, drop the link in the comments, and I’ll add it to the rotation next month.

1. Loanwords on the Front Lines by Andrew Zubiri from Consequence Forum 🦀

“cooties, n.1) from the Austronesian kutu or Tagalog kuto, a body louse  2) an umbrella term for germs believed to be picked up from strangers  3) In the Philippines, hundreds of thousands die from cholera on top of the casualties of the Philippine-American War, as American military forces herd Filipinos into crowded concentration camps and quarters with unsanitary conditions.  4) Asians are shunned, if not brutally attacked, and blamed for the spread of Covid. People avoid sitting next to me on the bus.”

2. Bed Habits by Rachel Handler from Vulture

“Could I, in the course of my own objectively stupid and scientifically deficient research, challenge the entrenched Christian concepts of good and bad, releasing us from the self-perpetuating prison of attaching a moral dichotomy to biological imperatives? Or would I just end up reiterating that looking at our phones before bed is dark-sided and we will all definitely die from it?”

3. 8 Books About the Reality of Living with Chronic Illness by Emma Bolden from Electric Lit

“It’s impossible to create a cohesive linear narrative out of chronic illness. There often isn’t an identifiable starting point, and there is even less often an identifiable stopping point. There are, instead, waves that rise and fall with each episode, each flare, each day spent trying to keep one’s head above water while pain tries to drown you.”

4. Lessons from a thriving physical therapist to a younger self just learning about multiple sclerosis by Isabella Cueto from STAT News

“It’s confusing because it’s not like your eye is all of a sudden seeing black. It’s almost like a cobweb — you can’t see anything but you can see shapes. Didn’t go away after a week. And then I was in the shower shaving and I noticed that the razor felt really different on my right leg versus my left, almost like if you’re skiing and your leg is a little bit numb and it’s thawing out. It just felt dull.”

5. Menopause is More Than Just a Punchline by Sue Carter from Catapult

“On my worst days, I’m not leaving the apartment, let alone out in the world offering advice. I can’t imagine wearing silk because I’m a sweat machine; also none of my cute vintage blouses fit anymore without strangling my breasts and upper arms. I’m probably wearing a loose T-shirt with the image of a band who gets regular rotation on oldies radio stations, working on yet another freelance assignment because I fear that because of middle age, my earning potential will dry up in tandem with my vagina.”

6. Q + A by Daniel Barnum from Guernica 🦀

“There are many metaphors for sorrow, for the way depression destroys life. A weight, a fog, a pit. The feeling of nothing at all.”

7. Heart Failure…at 29? by Evette Dionne from Oldster Magazine

“Sometimes, late at night, I comb through the #pulmonaryhypertension hashtag on Instagram. It’s full of people with varying degrees of the condition carrying oxygen tanks or adjusting stomach ports that pump them with medication twenty-four hours a day. There are photos of people in the hospital awaiting double lung transplants and others trying to complete a whirlwind bucket list before they run out of time. I scroll through those pictures as if they’re a crystal ball predicting my inevitable future. Sometimes it sends me into a panic attack. Sometimes it makes me sob uncontrollably. Sometimes it makes me feel grateful that the disease hasn’t advanced that far . . . yet.”

8. Space to Breathe by Krista Lee Hanson from The Rumpus

“The mechanics, the physics, the organs and tissues of breathing function with such perfect, delicate balance. So many things—a virus, an allergy, or the variation of a single muscle protein’s genetic sequence—can disrupt our easy flow of breath.”