Be Someone Else

I have a personal essay in the February issue of Bodega . You can read it here.

I started writing this about 15 years ago, right after the events in the essay. For years I would tinker with it and then let it sit. My grandmother eventually passed in 2012. Finally, in 2017 I decided it was ‘done’ and started submitting it. It got rejected 7 times before being accepted by Bodega.

I don’t really write creative non-fiction anymore. Every time I attempt it I usually give up. I think that I have nothing to say or the piece spirals out of control I don’t know what it’s about anymore.

The moment in this essay felt important at the time, though I think I did not know how important it was until many years later. Sometimes it takes a decade to write something.

Here is a picture of my grandmother at her 96th birthday.