Everything Here Is Beautiful

by Mira T. Lee

She is telling me I am filming her on the security screens, bad people are making movies of her in our room.”

This was Stefan. Always calm, always rational. Sometimes she wished he’d stop it, and just be on her side.

Each of these psychotic episodes was toxic to the brain, resulted in cognitive decline, and it was impossible to predict how much of a person might be irretrievably lost each time.

“Prodromal symptoms. The ones that forecast a break.” She focused on wellness: daily routines, proper nutrition, exercise, sleep and self-care. I never got to bed early, but I ate mostly organic, took brisk walks, practiced yoga and tai-chi.

There’s a word for this in Portuguese: saudade. It’s not exactly nostalgia, there’s more of a longing in it, for a feeling or way of life that may be impossible to recapture—that may or may not have even existed in the first place.