Carried: Osteo-Myelitis (Inflammation of the bones)

It runs as a quarrel with the ground of things, a fear and anger at the very structure of the universe and the nature of life, a felt total lack of support or safety, carried by someone who became the pillar of strength and family hoist in a depriving childhood. The self-reliance is real and it rests on a conviction that nothing underneath will hold. The clinical name is a shape, not a diagnosis. What it asks for is one experience of being supported, so the frame is not the only thing holding.

I've held everything up alone in a world I never felt held by, and my very frame aches with it.

Vainamoinen, the ancient singer who carried the world's lore alone through a cold and unhelping cosmos, holding up more than any one being should have to. The form implies a task: to be held by something outside oneself, for once.