Nonfiction | December 01, 2007

The full text of this essay is not currently available online.

March 2006. I’m sitting in a hot tub at Well of Mercy Catholic Retreat Center in Hamptonville, North Carolina, under a full moon. I got in on this chilly night hoping to drift further away from the anxieties that prompted me to retreat: the regular stack of ungraded papers, a botched repair job in my kitchen, a spat with a friend. I’m a person who received pancreas and kidney transplants six years ago, and I’m easily fatigued. My mother is elderly, our country is at war — there’s enough to be concerned about. But what I’m thinking of at the moment is my hair.

If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.

SEE THE ISSUE

SUGGESTED CONTENT