A Force Outside Myself
A Force Outside Myself: Citizens over 60 Speak (McSweeney’s)
Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. "Hayward children forming pyramid" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1950 - 1955 (Source)
McSweeney’s is a nonprofit publishing company based in San Francisco, with online and print media publications. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they have established a project called “A Force Outside Myself: Citizens Over 60 Speak which seeks to elevate and center first-person voices of the people over 60.
To learn more or submit to their project, see guidelines here
Excerpt: “So here I sit, aching from the pain of isolation and separation, tearful when I see the suffering of those in ICUs around the country, euphorically grateful that I am healthy, enchanted by the jade-green centers of the ranunculus flowers I bought myself for my birthday… feeling everything so acutely. I sometimes wish I could shut those doors, even just a little.
But I can’t, and that’s okay. This is me at 68. I rescue cats and earthworms, dote on the people I adore. Am I ready to die? Absolutely not. I love myself now. Wall Street will have to find another martyr.” - from word by Jane Ganahl (Bay Area, Born 1952), accessed April 17, 2020
Related: “Covid diaries capture Kildare lockdown memories” (by Eleanor Mannion, RTÉ News [Ireland], September 2020)
An account of a community arts project in Co Kildare, Ireland, aimed at older people and those otherwise ‘cocooning’ in response to the pandemic. “A Covid diary project reveals the impact of the lockdown on its Co Kildare participants with many discussing feelings of ‘loneliness, isolation, and despair’ but also ‘a sense of optimism’”.
