Esmé Weijun Wang

Incorrigible aesthete. Language as backbone. Compassion through intimacy.

Journal

Incorrigible aesthete. Language as backbone. Compassion through intimacy.

I'm a writer, a photographer, and a blogger. I believe in sharing as a form of stigma reduction, and write about my experiences with mental illness online, specifically my life with Schizoaffective Disorder.

It Is Important to Go Quiet, Now

It has been an important day -- a momentous day -- and this is why I must go quiet for some time.

To stay off of social media, to pare down my blog reader to its skeleton, to read Truth and Beauty and wake up at 4 AM if I feel like it, which I did today.

Someone very important to me, an extraordinary writer, sold her debut short story collection today for an unheard-of sum, with unheard-of conditions from the publisher. A momentous day for the both of us, to be sure, but also a bone-rattling day and one that I found difficult on many levels. How can I feel secure on this most insecure of days?

Her email to me was what did it. I won't reprint it here, but she said:

Honor your book with your work. Honor your book with love. It is not done yet. It has so much more growing to do -- in so many no-doubt stunning ways. The greatest, greatest gift you can give yourself - and that, sadly, no one, not even me, can give you - is time.

I'll be seeing you, though I don't know when. Bon voyage to me.

Hello. My name is Esmé, and I am a writer. (And a Gemini.)

But really, I'm a deep heartache made lyrical. A word-spined panther with shining eyes and a sleek silhouette. A fractured shaman.

I am amazing at loving deeply.

And I've devoted most of my life to sharing what it's like to have my kind of brain ailments with the ones who know, who understand -- as well as the ones who don't know, and are better because they do.

When you invite me into your life, you can expect to feel less alone. A joy at connection. Feeling beloved. And you'll probably be surprised and delighted by my silliness and goofy sense of humor. I like absurdity. I love to laugh so hard I cry.

My work matters because it alleviates the suffering caused by the fact that we are all separate human beings, in our separate bodies and minds.

I am here to remind you to please be kind. Because we all need love.

My question for you is: what is your great hurt?

In sum: I am not for the faint of heart. And neither are you, regardless of your wounds. Welcome.

this brief(ish) author bio was the result of playing with alexandra franzen's I AM worksheet, which you can download for free here, and which came from this post -- thanks, alx

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