Exploring the intersection of tarot symbolism and contemporary life, this essay collection delves into the poetic connections between the cards and personal experiences. It reflects on the transformative nature of both tarot and the world, offering insights into navigating change and self-discovery through a unique lens.
Through the tide of hormones surging within my body, and the little runnels of blood, and the sour tang of my breasts, I lay awake, listening, and thinking of breath and of water. I had broken my relationship with sleep. In this stunning collection, Jessica Friedmann navigates her journey through postpartum depression after the birth of her son. Drawing on critical theory, popular culture, and personal experience, her wide-ranging essays touch on class, race, gender, and sexuality, as well as motherhood, creativity, and mental illness. Occasionally confronting, but always powerfully moving and beautifully observed, Things That Helpedcharts Jessica's return into the world: a slow and complex process of reassembling what depression fractured, and sometimes broke.