Writing My Way Out of the Fires

This is me, on my couch. Or rather this is how Mary Sanche pictured how I’d look, and feel on my couch during the long winter of 2023 after the wildfire evacuations that summer – combined with other life-altering events – unmoored me. I’ve never met Mary. I don’t know if they knew anything more about me than the personal essay I’d written for Canadian Geographic about the mental health impacts of climate change. But this illustration rendered for that article resonates deeply.