Love Letter: A Prescription for Despair

We’ve all had moments in our lives when we’ve felt like there was absolutely nothing that could turn our luck around. For Naomie Brinvilus, a writer from Haiti, that moment came after her country’s devastating 2010 earthquake, which left her family homeless and hungry. Feeling desperate, she sought help from a spiritual guide. His prescription of a wooden spoon, green onion, a young rooster and other talismans would not only bring her into a promised season of good fortune, it would also lead her to find love with a handsome stranger in the most unlikely of places — a cholera treatment center.

What do unicorn floats and marriage have in common? For the writer Kelly Hoover Greenway, the answer was revealed on the day she was asked to write about the whimsical pool floats, which also happened to be the day her husband of 10 years said he no longer wanted to be married. She later concluded that “the slightest tear can lead to your float’s/marriage’s demise if you don’t mend it fast enough.”

In the past five or so months, we’ve all had to make adjustments to how we live our lives and how we interact with our loved ones. And while many of us are hoping to get back to some semblance of normalcy, there are still a few things like shaking hands with a stranger, greeting a friend with a hug or kissing a date, that will probably never be the same. It looks like we’ll all have to get used to elbow bumping for the unforeseeable future.

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source: nytimes.com