Alberta #3 (2016-18)

In November 2017, I found myself at a rooftop pool in Arizona. The next day I was to present an academic paper at a conference, and I still hadn't written it. I had no idea what I was going to say. I started thinking about all I had been through this year. I spent three weeks in a psychiatric hospital doing my doctoral research, but, at that point, I still had no idea what I had learnt from that time. I thought to June 2017 when I experienced the most severe manic episode of my life. I thought about my family. I thought about my kids. I thought about the two months of depression following that and how I went to New York City with my dad to try and jolt myself out of it. I thought back to the graves. I thought of my grave if things had gone even slightly differently in June.

In Arizona, I was lucky. I had transcribed my notebooks from that year and had them with me. I started piecing together a narrative about family, heredity, time, and madness. It would rock back and forth in time. I wanted to tell a larger, longer story, a generational story. I remember compiling this, adding to it, caring for it anew as I sat under the never-ending blue sky of Arizona. The next day, I got up and read what would become Alberta #3. I never looked up at the audience, I was almost crying, but when I finished, I looked up and saw a room of love. After people came up to me and started touching me and hugging me. I have read that story over a dozen times in the past few years. It has never got easier.