Just One Thing with Leah Korican

Leah Korican’s essay “Nancy” reveals a moment of shared intimacies, a shift, a rift. Here she shares just one thing about the piece:

“Until I wrote this, I had never told anyone about what Nancy had shared with me. Years later, I ran into her in the Berkeley Bowl, a groovy grocery store, there, among the organic vegetables, we caught up. We chit-chatted. Did she remember our walk and conversation? I did not ask. She lived alone— she seemed lonely. My desire to run from her and be kind to her were equally present, equally balanced. Just as when I was a child, I felt tenderness, a desire to protect her, and fierce rage. We talked vaguely about meeting for tea sometime. I didn't promise anything. Neither of us reached out, and I never saw her again. This is a photo of me from around the time when I first knew Nancy.”