Just One Thing with Ella Harrigan

Ella Harrigan’s “Mal à la Tête” is a visceral essay about the Headache Center (and all the pain that comes with a visit). Here she shares just one thing about the piece:

“I started writing this essay right after talking to my landlady. I went back inside to the apartment and I started typing. My girlfriend and I were renting the bottom floor of a beautiful, rotting Victorian. I wrote up this piece over the summer that we were living there, mostly sitting in our bedroom with the windows open to air out the smell of black mold, which was our enemy—mostly my enemy, because I was the one working from home. I aired out the house during the day and turned the dehumidifier on at night and every weekend, I scrubbed diluted bleach into the walls. It didn't do much. The mold itself didn't make its way into the piece directly, but I do think it provides a lovely bit of atmosphere. There's an interesting gothic quality in mold, and especially in alleged accounts of black mold poisoning. I think we should all write about it more.”