HOW TO KEEP GOING

 CANNOT think of the past year without linking it to 2020, when all our lives changed. As the coronavirus became a global pandemic, I had so many conversations with friends about the value of art in this time. Was it worth it to play around with the order of words on a page, to create characters that didn’t exist when there was so much devastation in the world? When we were emotionally, physically, mentally drained? You know the answer, just as I do, or you wouldn’t be here, reading this essay. It is always worth it—to search for meaning through the act of writing, to discover ourselves through our narratives, to create art by linking words together. For me this is the truest answer. The next question, though, is how? How do we keep going? When each new day brings more