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NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y R E V I E W
Winter 2024
WINNER, 2 02 3 A LEX ALBRIGHT C REATIV E NONF ICTIO N PRIZE
weight of
by Laura Hope-Gill
THE
“All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it.” –Claude Monet
G LI HT
Facebook, November 29 Note from “mild traumatic brain injury” land. Can’t use screens (except to teach/meet with colleagues), can’t read, can’t think, can’t stress, so I paint. This massive world canvas will keep me healing. I’ll be all well when it is done, either meaning I won’t have headaches or I’ll be a better painter. MY DOCTOR CONFIRMED THE
ER doctor’s diagnosis of “concussion” from the night before. For the next few days, I managed my life while observing the protocol, but with a few “cheats.” I still gave a talk at a faculty meeting, accompanied by my partner, Derek. I still took my mother and my daughter to The World Ballet’s performance of Swan Lake. I spent the rest of my time in my room with the lights off, resting. I felt I was getting better. I confirmed a talk at East Carolina University and a conversation with a colleague to help
promote his new book at our local bookstore. After four days, I purchased an airline ticket to get to the reading, thinking that driving might not be so good. I was experiencing headaches unlike the one that first occurred. Something changed dramatically on the sixth day, the day before I was supposed to fly. I felt like I was on fire. More specifically, my brain was telling me that it was on fire, and my body interpreted that to mean it was on fire as well. It was time for my one-week post-ER checkup. I had written my notes on a yellow Post-it:
LAURA HOPE-GILL is the founding coordinator of the MFA in Writing and the Narrative Medicine Certificate Program at Lenoir-Rhyne University. Also the founder of Asheville Wordfest, Hope-Gill is a deaf and newly functionally-blind producer, poet, painter, pianist, and essayist who has published in Parabola, Missouri Review, and Denver Quarterly, among other journals. Her books are The Soul Tree (Grateful Steps, 2009) and Look Up Asheville (Grateful Steps, 2010). Her essay on narrative medicine, “Finding the Heart in Medicine: Intersections of Healthcare and Writing,” appeared in NCLR’s 30th issue in 2021. In 2023, she launched The Story Shepherds, a story-listening initiative for healing our lives of loss and trauma.
with art by the author