A Blank Slate
This is not farewell, just fair warning—months of it. Rock & Hawk will slow down. I’ll still be in your inbox each week as long as possible, but eventually won’t be able to. As with everything in my life, this relates to my brain injury. I’m not slowing down directly because of it, rather because of what I want in its wake.
Rock & Hawk means too much to me to stop writing. Substack feels like self-care.
’s seed tax; ’s birding; ’s photos and affirmations; ’s mysteries; ’s avian musings—the list is long. My mental health requires it, but time I devote to Substack will wane; flow is approaching its ebb.
This newsletter is more important to me than I can adequately articulate. It’s been here when I’ve needed it. What started on a whim December 2020 became an extension of who I am. I’ve chronicled difficult years here.1
When I started this newsletter at 2020’s end, if you asked what I loved about my life and wanted it to look like, then explained what it would look like and what I’d want in 2025, I wouldn’t have understood.
I was comfortable. Comfort and complacency overlap. Looking for a Snail Kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis) in Florida, comfort disappeared. I was hit by a semi truck and suffered a diffuse axonal traumatic brain injury to my left frontal lobe.
Rebuilding after TBI isn’t quick or easy,2 no cause for complacency. January 14, 2022 my existence took a shit3—not just my health. To not become a heap of traumatized denial, depressed inaction, and stagnant ire, I needed goals.
After I’d been med-flighted from the first to second hospital,4 Miami to Boston, then eventually discharged, my life became what it’s been. Anything is an improvement from being zipped into or secured to a hospital bed, but life after discharge hasn’t been excellent. I’ve filled my days however I had to or could, but will never get these years back.
The best word to describe what my brain injury awoke in me is rage—not even angry, but undoubtedly rage. Dynamic and energized.
People guess the hardest part of recovery was relearning to walk, talk, or still having incorrect vision after three eye surgeries. Not easy but straightforward.
My cognition doesn’t present issues. An anomalous stroke of post-TBI luck, I know what I knew and think how I thought. That isn’t to say my mental health wasn’t impacted. Self-doubt, depression,5 anxiety—but my biggest symptoms are physical.
Most things post-TBI seem fine. They feel wrong and require thought: Don’t let your foot drag. Loosen your grip on the pencil, move your thumb. Cormorant. Core…More…Rant. Core-more-rant. To mitigate diplopia I close an eye when needed rather than wear an eyepatch. Dostoevsky was right, man gets used to anything. I’m used to this.
Vision, walking, and speech haven’t been the hardest parts of my recovery.6 Recovery doesn’t end; “Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury is a Lifelong Condition.” The hardest part of mine has been reintegrating into the world when I look and seem fine but am not. Walking is straightforward; reorienting my life is messy.
A general summary of my life since TBI:
Months/years of physical, occupational, vision, and speech therapy. Balance and gait training; picking up pennies; merging images; reading aloud.
Exercise and food. I ran for gait training, but love lifting weights so wound up in a squat rack and gained 60 pounds—overcorrecting the 40 I lost in the hospital.7
January/February 2022. August 2022: Friends ran a 5k with me to commemorate not being dead (my PT set a 5k as a goal). August 2022: Worked back to rowing the boat my grandfather left me. Harder than rowing: getting it on my truck racks. If I ever say I'm not sentimental, ask me about that boat. Birds. Sometimes life demands you do things to feel good. For me, birding.
2022, 2022; 2023; 2024, 2024, 2024. New England, California, Louisiana. Interim jobs came and went. Low-stakes work that was doable.
I interviewed for a handful of jobs I didn’t see as interim. Round after round, none panned out. I turned one down that was perfect in theory—birds, writing, community outreach—but pragmatically wasn’t.
I’ve always done freelance editing, writing, and research. Thankfully I’m still able. Doing those things was like bailing water out of a sinking ship. It kept me sane, made me feel useful and relevant.
It was time for something new. I’d wanted to blend writing and the outdoors—conservation communications, community outreach, working with my body a bit. Interim jobs were often physical, I saw them as extensions of PT. I’ve been varying degrees of a meathead for a decade and like to use my body—but can’t think of a day I haven’t sat at my laptop to write or send emails, and I’m never not thinking. At best I’m a nerd; at worst an overthinker. I care a lot about words, ideas, birds, Dostoevsky, David Foster Wallace. I have phases of nerdy fixation.8
If I often write about nature, wouldn’t that be a good career? I used to think so. My background is in English and Journalism, not conservation. Talking about careers years ago, I was reminded: “You didn’t study conservation.” That doesn’t necessarily eliminate me from the work I wanted—in my coma I missed a final interview for a conservation job—but it doesn’t help. The fact I like being outside doesn’t mean I have to be for work. To write about nature I have Rock & Hawk.
What do I like? What can I do? Introspection isn’t easy, but helped me understand and feel good about myself. My internal monologue is kinder, I have a positive relationship with my body, I’ve regained confidence. Whatever happens I’ll be fine.
A blank slate must be filled. Perhaps blanking was necessary. You might come to be thankful elements were erased. Maybe you wouldn’t have erased them yourself, but they weren’t justifying inclusion. Erasure makes space; filling it isn’t easy or swift.
My biggest changes after TBI are physical. My body doesn’t work how it did. My brain does. A brain injury ironically clarified: use the thing.
I’m starting over. Terrifying but good. In fall I begin law school.
My TBI is negative; corresponding positive: it pushed me to study law. I’ve spent plenty of time as a student and used to work at a college. The best things are pedagogical.
My old life ended, the new one will put me in a classroom. It won’t be easy, I’ll celebrate being accepted but this is by no means the end. Three years of studying, writing, and reading—hundreds of pages per week.
With specific plans where I wanted to go and why, I only applied to two law schools. When I know what I want, I zero in. For an M.A. I wanted a specific program and applied only there. A downside is when things don’t go as hoped; an upside is they often can. I did that one grad program and was accepted to both those schools with healthy scholarships—a full scholarship to my top choice.
A legal career wasn’t my initial plan but has always been in the back of my mind. Law schools judge applicants by undergraduate GPA and LSAT score. My GPA was good. For the LSAT I enrolled in a course and did practice sections or full exams every day.
Initially I wanted to study environmental law. One of the schools is known for it, but I’ll love nature on my own time.
There are many areas of law. Given what happened to me, I’m interested in disability law—to offer qualified help along with experience-based understanding to those who find themselves injured, disabled, or dealing with SSDI.
Choosing law school as my next step wasn’t without trepidation. I’ll be 32 as a 1L. Who cares? “You’ll stop worrying what others think about you when you realize how seldom they do.” There’s no set timeline for life. Maybe I’d have studied law younger if my TBI hadn’t happened. More realistically I wouldn’t have done any of this. My plan before brain injury was move to Maine, get married, work in conservation. I’m happier with my new plan.
Societal standards go roughly as follows. 28: get married; 30: own a home; 30-40: have kids. In my final months of 31, three strikes. Fuck it. 32: law school.
I’m excited and proud. Thank you to Rock & Hawk’s readers for unknowingly making me feel valid and relevant when I felt neither. To reiterate, Rock & Hawk will not go away. Monhegan, smart feeders, warblers—plenty in the near future. Flow just unavoidably leads to ebb, but then ebb leads to flow.
Below are edited excerpts from my application’s personal statement.
An oft-cited appeal of the legal profession is the chance to help others. A through-line in my life has been help—finding ways to give it and needing it myself.
When I do academic work and editing, I like that the material will be a resource for others. I love it, but academia can be limited in scope. I tried journalism. Reporting and writing let me understand and facilitate others’ understanding of an array of topics—management of striped bass, an historical boat shop, consequences of military bomb testing.
The legal profession exists at the confluence of my skills, desire to help, and a recent personal ordeal. Less than three years out from a diffuse axonal traumatic brain injury I prepared for and took the LSAT. A week before my accident’s three year anniversary I was accepted to my top choice.
For the benefit of others I want to use intellectual capabilities I’m lucky not to have lost: learn the legal profession, use critical thought and my brain to be of service.
Ali Rheaume is an inspiring survivor, public speaker, artist, and advocate. Ali’s journey has “included Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Auditory Processing Disorder, Narcolepsy with Cataplexy, Dysautonomia, and more—all diagnosed after her brain injury.” She’s a valuable resource if you want to learn about accessibility and brain injury.
Most of what I cared about went away. No point looking backward—look forward with positivity and optimism. In the past I was negative and pessimistic; it took brain damage to make me positive and optimistic.
Spaulding Rehab. Only hospital in the country to simultaneously receive the Model System designation in TBI, Spinal Cord and Burn Injury. Months and hours of driving simulator drills in outpatient OT there before being medically cleared to drive again, which took almost a year and a half. Now I can look at Spaulding from behind the wheel when I drive over the Tobin. I remain thankful to that hospital and agreed to participate in a study they’re conducting about resiliency after acquired brain injury.
For years I wanted to take my own life. I thought about it every day, never attempted but had a plan. After TBI, risk of attempting suicide is “2.23 times higher.”
“My” recovery. No two are the same. This video about Joey Maxim’s still brings me to tears for so many reasons:
Meathead parlance: bulking. My body’s shape and weight have had ups and downs.
A young cyclist, I had an eating disorder and weighed as little as 112 pounds. Lifting weights at Planet Fitness in my late teens brought me to around 150 for college. Cottage cheese and burritos in the dining hall brought me to 160. To try boxing I dropped to the 147 weight class. A concussion showed risks of a sport where you get punched in the head. I stopped, just lifted weights, and reached 200 pounds. Ground beef and creamy four cheese rice-a-roni.
Not sustainable, I dieted to the 180s then dropped to low 170s in grad school. After the program I was back to the 180s where I stayed for years. After my accident I dropped to 140. Discharged, I slowly got to 170 then past 200 to show myself I could. A five-serving tub of greek yogurt was one serving. Alpha-gal made ground turkey more appealing than beef.
Again, not sustainable. I’ve dropped (meathead parlance: cut) to mid-180s, where I’ll stay. A doctor compared my weight chart to a rollercoaster.
Rasputin.
They tried to kill him so many times! Poison? Nice try. Gunshot? Ha! Another gunshot? Nope. Thrown in a river? Believe it or not, that did it. When they found Rasputin’s “battered body…there was water in his lungs, indicating that he finally died by drowning.” It’s no secret Rasputin indulged in sin. He believed salvation was attained via repentance, thus via sin.
Wow! What major news! And I have zero doubt you’ll make a huge impact in this new career course. You have my full support and I thank you for being one of my earliest supporters on Substack, when I was riddled with doubt and hoping someone was out there reading. Always here if you need anything. DMs are always open
Congrats on the new course in life. I’ll be here and ready to read when you do publish. Good luck!