Welcome to Fragile Human!

(Bird on Head- Antwerp Belgium- photo by Laelia Watt, November 2018) 

When studying Nonfiction Creative Writing at the University of Arizona, I started a blog to have a place to practice writing essays. It was called “Far from Ordinary Stories” for many years after college and into my 30s. In 2013, I had an idea which slowly brought me to this moment, the creation of a blog and brand called FRAGILE HUMAN of all things.

On the blog of old, I wrote about sightseeing adventures, changes in my worldview, and funny moments between family and strangers. I wrote poems and tirades, soliloquies, and ramblings. I wrote about religion, art, and nature, and posted my amateur artistic photographs from the dozen places I have lived and traveled in since starting the blog nearly fourteen years ago. This space will be similar, but with the purpose of promoting empathy and mental health awareness through storytelling.

The beauty of creative nonfiction is its ability to connect the reader to various aspects of the self that bubble to the surface only when hearing another person’s story. I remember the first creative nonfiction book I read in college. It was Annie Dillard’s “An American Childhood” and my first impression was, sad to admit, boredom and confusion. As she described scenes from her childhood in great detail, I found my mind wandering to my own childhood, and as I drifted back to the text, I wondered what the point of her story was and when the adventure would kick in. Back and forth, my mind absorbed her memories of her father in particular then hearkened back to my own memories.

As many teenagers can attest, there is usually one parent you are mad at by the age of 18, and I carried with me to college a lot of anger towards my dear dad. In reading Annie Dillard’s book, I recalled so many scenes of my own years with my dad and how much he made me laugh or cared for us kids in various ways, that suddenly halfway through the book, I had an epiphany, “I am not mad at my father!” It was like a lightning bolt. I saw clearly how I had internalized anger my mom felt towards him and absorbed all her stories of hurt and frustration. That was where she was at the time, but her experience had absolutely nothing to do with the way I experienced my dad as his daughter. Because Annie Dillard shared her story, I was able to let go of those feelings which did not stem from my own experience and connect with elements of my own story in a new way.

That is my hope with FRAGILE HUMAN. This human experience is complicated, silly, stupid, downright frightening, and often hilarious. We are strong and capable of achieving greatness, but in my own experience, I did not learn flexibility, grace and compassion for myself until I faced my own fragility. Recognizing the fragility of life also inspires empathy for the lives of people around us. Life can kick you in the gut and if you’re battered and bruised, no amount of pretending you are immovable as stone will make the bruises heal faster. That is the point of this space- to share stories and remind you that you are human, beautiful and breakable, and all the more valuable for it.