Margaret Atwood’s themes of survival, images of the body, and the implicit questions about what it means to be female reached inside me and shook me. Slowly, on the cusp of twenty years old, I began to wake from a dark, oblivious sleep.

Things are happening in my country. Bad and probably good things, but mostly big and heavy and hard to carry things. Everyone’s “taking a stand,” posting rants and heartfelt messages and quoting dead people. A few are actually doing something—walking in marches and holding candles.

But not me. I’m just sitting here grinding