naked and stunned at the end of the world
@therachlz.bsky.social
Journalist, essayist, chronic illness alchemist.
https://linktr.ee/thisisrachel
https://linktr.ee/thisisrachel
I have a new article out in the Providence Eye on the long covid crisis in Rhode Island, and how folks are getting their needs met (or not) amidst crumbling health infrastructure.
pvdeye.org/caught-betwe...
#longcovid #localjournalism #chronicillness #mecfs #healthcarecrisis #millionsmissing
pvdeye.org/caught-betwe...
#longcovid #localjournalism #chronicillness #mecfs #healthcarecrisis #millionsmissing
Caught Between Crises: Long COVID Patients Struggle to Find Healthcare in Rhode Island
With Rhode Island’s healthcare system strained to the breaking point, long COVID patients grapple with complex, mysterious, and disabling symptoms — and find meaning supporting each other and working ...
pvdeye.org
August 27, 2025 at 11:37 AM
I have a new article out in the Providence Eye on the long covid crisis in Rhode Island, and how folks are getting their needs met (or not) amidst crumbling health infrastructure.
pvdeye.org/caught-betwe...
#longcovid #localjournalism #chronicillness #mecfs #healthcarecrisis #millionsmissing
pvdeye.org/caught-betwe...
#longcovid #localjournalism #chronicillness #mecfs #healthcarecrisis #millionsmissing
"As I explore the landscape of my new baseline I find myself living in the friction of intense desire and unwanted limits, tentative action and skeptical amazement, frustration and delight, anger and gratitude."
thisisrachel.substack.com/p/the-unbear... #chronicillness #longcovid #mecfs
thisisrachel.substack.com/p/the-unbear... #chronicillness #longcovid #mecfs
The unbearable lightness of moving the microwave: radical acceptance is a moving target
Navigating the strange terrain of an evolving baseline (with gratitude to low-dose rapamycin)
thisisrachel.substack.com
August 8, 2025 at 3:22 PM
"As I explore the landscape of my new baseline I find myself living in the friction of intense desire and unwanted limits, tentative action and skeptical amazement, frustration and delight, anger and gratitude."
thisisrachel.substack.com/p/the-unbear... #chronicillness #longcovid #mecfs
thisisrachel.substack.com/p/the-unbear... #chronicillness #longcovid #mecfs
"It is everyone’s responsibility to care for the most vulnerable among us—not because of some abstract principle, but because that is what resistance to a politic of fascist eugenics looks like."
A new writing on the practice of presence and the metabolism of grief.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
A new writing on the practice of presence and the metabolism of grief.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
The day the earth stood still
Grief brings us into intimacy with the unthinkable, and also offers us greater access to the sublime.
substack.com
July 21, 2025 at 12:32 PM
"It is everyone’s responsibility to care for the most vulnerable among us—not because of some abstract principle, but because that is what resistance to a politic of fascist eugenics looks like."
A new writing on the practice of presence and the metabolism of grief.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
A new writing on the practice of presence and the metabolism of grief.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
I'm the author of this essay--thank you for sharing! One of the most difficult parts of chronic illness, and living a COVID-competent lifestyle, is the isolation. The more we can connect and tell our stories, the more we can step out into the light and shift norms, the more powerful we are.
This is a beautiful and brutal essay on living in a world that is pretending we are okay, pretending COVID doesn't exist, ignoring the vulnerable and disabled at home.
thisisrachel.substack.com/p/a-trip-to-...
thisisrachel.substack.com/p/a-trip-to-...
A trip to IKEA destroyed my life, or, #millionsmissing and the moral corruption of normalcy
“I think you need to send that feedback to Ikea.”
thisisrachel.substack.com
July 12, 2025 at 10:01 PM
I'm the author of this essay--thank you for sharing! One of the most difficult parts of chronic illness, and living a COVID-competent lifestyle, is the isolation. The more we can connect and tell our stories, the more we can step out into the light and shift norms, the more powerful we are.
New article out today on disability, pandemic fatigue, trauma, and masking in the Providence Eye! pvdeye.org/why-we-mask-...
Why We Mask: Solidarity, Creativity & Community Care in a Not-Quite-Post-Pandemic World
At a backyard cookout this spring, Emily Kindschy did something she hadn’t done in several years: she took off her mask in a crowd. “We were standing at a distance, [...]
pvdeye.org
July 9, 2025 at 1:41 PM
New article out today on disability, pandemic fatigue, trauma, and masking in the Providence Eye! pvdeye.org/why-we-mask-...
Why do leaf blowers sound so aggressively angry to me? Definitely the chest-pounding alpha douchebags of the garden shed.
July 7, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Why do leaf blowers sound so aggressively angry to me? Definitely the chest-pounding alpha douchebags of the garden shed.
Roses are red
chronic illness sucks
I'm reaching the point
where I give ZERO F***S
chronic illness sucks
I'm reaching the point
where I give ZERO F***S
February 14, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Roses are red
chronic illness sucks
I'm reaching the point
where I give ZERO F***S
chronic illness sucks
I'm reaching the point
where I give ZERO F***S
Reposted by naked and stunned at the end of the world
attn: everyone who says "why don't Americans take to the streets?"
BREAKING NEWS: 4:07
Anti-deportation protesters are blocking traffic on 101 Freeway in Los Angeles.
They want to stop Trump’s deportations of illegal migrants
Anti-deportation protesters are blocking traffic on 101 Freeway in Los Angeles.
They want to stop Trump’s deportations of illegal migrants
February 3, 2025 at 12:37 AM
attn: everyone who says "why don't Americans take to the streets?"
Dean Spade’s Mutual Aid offering hope and solidarity this Caturday.
February 1, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Dean Spade’s Mutual Aid offering hope and solidarity this Caturday.
What’s keeping y’all going in these self-satirizing, trauma-bombing, fash-forward times? I’m cooking, imperfectly practicing rest, rereading Emergent Strategy, speculating about utopia with friends, clumsily building community, lying in sunbeams with the cat, and following AOC on social media.
January 30, 2025 at 4:02 PM
What’s keeping y’all going in these self-satirizing, trauma-bombing, fash-forward times? I’m cooking, imperfectly practicing rest, rereading Emergent Strategy, speculating about utopia with friends, clumsily building community, lying in sunbeams with the cat, and following AOC on social media.
Reposted by naked and stunned at the end of the world
It’s important to know that a lot of productive activity is happening in person and offline, too.
Not all of it can be broadcast online, but we’ve had hundreds of people showing up to our trainings, mobilizations, and more.
Keep going. Tyranny is eroded by a sea of small acts. Everything matters.
Not all of it can be broadcast online, but we’ve had hundreds of people showing up to our trainings, mobilizations, and more.
Keep going. Tyranny is eroded by a sea of small acts. Everything matters.
January 30, 2025 at 4:03 AM
It’s important to know that a lot of productive activity is happening in person and offline, too.
Not all of it can be broadcast online, but we’ve had hundreds of people showing up to our trainings, mobilizations, and more.
Keep going. Tyranny is eroded by a sea of small acts. Everything matters.
Not all of it can be broadcast online, but we’ve had hundreds of people showing up to our trainings, mobilizations, and more.
Keep going. Tyranny is eroded by a sea of small acts. Everything matters.
Hello, BlueSky! Tell me about you. Meta has all the qualities of a is a lurching, flesh-eating Romero zombie and I want to leave. So…Is anyone here? Is this a viable alternative to the ick of Facebook and Instagram? (1 of 2)
January 17, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Hello, BlueSky! Tell me about you. Meta has all the qualities of a is a lurching, flesh-eating Romero zombie and I want to leave. So…Is anyone here? Is this a viable alternative to the ick of Facebook and Instagram? (1 of 2)
Impermanence means that the future is unknowable.
Emptiness means that we're always in good company.
Life as I know it may come to a screeching end tomorrow, and also it may not.
A resource for reparations today (and other days): The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center:
www.niwrc.org
Emptiness means that we're always in good company.
Life as I know it may come to a screeching end tomorrow, and also it may not.
A resource for reparations today (and other days): The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center:
www.niwrc.org
Welcome | NIWRC
www.niwrc.org
November 28, 2024 at 6:32 PM
Impermanence means that the future is unknowable.
Emptiness means that we're always in good company.
Life as I know it may come to a screeching end tomorrow, and also it may not.
A resource for reparations today (and other days): The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center:
www.niwrc.org
Emptiness means that we're always in good company.
Life as I know it may come to a screeching end tomorrow, and also it may not.
A resource for reparations today (and other days): The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center:
www.niwrc.org
Everyone is talking about Parable of the Sower but I keep thinking of Kindred, Dana jerked backward and forward through time, looking back at herself across the impossible chasm of centuries, weighing incalculable harm from telescoping perspectives of past and future.
November 21, 2024 at 2:36 PM
Everyone is talking about Parable of the Sower but I keep thinking of Kindred, Dana jerked backward and forward through time, looking back at herself across the impossible chasm of centuries, weighing incalculable harm from telescoping perspectives of past and future.
“I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.” ~ Fernando Pessoa (from The Book of Disquiet).
Maybe the guiding principle for the next four years in the US is to view the present through the eyes of a hypothetical future. How will we want to have behaved in these times?
Maybe the guiding principle for the next four years in the US is to view the present through the eyes of a hypothetical future. How will we want to have behaved in these times?
November 21, 2024 at 2:35 PM
“I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.” ~ Fernando Pessoa (from The Book of Disquiet).
Maybe the guiding principle for the next four years in the US is to view the present through the eyes of a hypothetical future. How will we want to have behaved in these times?
Maybe the guiding principle for the next four years in the US is to view the present through the eyes of a hypothetical future. How will we want to have behaved in these times?
Doing the brave thing is so uncomfortable, like my psyche is breaking in brand new work boots and the blisters are interfering with my swagger. In six months time I’ll be stomping around like a boss.
November 20, 2024 at 4:08 PM
Doing the brave thing is so uncomfortable, like my psyche is breaking in brand new work boots and the blisters are interfering with my swagger. In six months time I’ll be stomping around like a boss.
Shredding my to do list. Moving mountains, then changing my mind and moving them back. Pouring tea just to read the tea leaves; dumping out the dregs because the future is still up for grabs. The sky is so blue today, the air so cold. Hey fellow traveler, tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine.
November 20, 2024 at 3:44 PM
Shredding my to do list. Moving mountains, then changing my mind and moving them back. Pouring tea just to read the tea leaves; dumping out the dregs because the future is still up for grabs. The sky is so blue today, the air so cold. Hey fellow traveler, tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine.
Thinking, today, that the past few years have seen the culture convulse with catastrophe and sudden awakening, followed by a return to forgetfulness and the status quo. Wondering: How can we hold onto awakening when we do not feel the blade of imminent threat against our necks?
November 18, 2024 at 2:28 AM
Thinking, today, that the past few years have seen the culture convulse with catastrophe and sudden awakening, followed by a return to forgetfulness and the status quo. Wondering: How can we hold onto awakening when we do not feel the blade of imminent threat against our necks?
I may be too old to learn a new social network. Nevertheless--hello! Here's an illustration from a Medieval edition of Dante's Inferno (slightly doctored).
June 15, 2024 at 2:21 PM
I may be too old to learn a new social network. Nevertheless--hello! Here's an illustration from a Medieval edition of Dante's Inferno (slightly doctored).